Should the electoral college be abolished?

[russ_watters]

there's no "other"

I guess I figured the "hybrid" was the "other". What do you suggest? If it's an abolition of democracy, I'm afraid this thread doesn't apply to you...

 

[russ_watters]

I don't know what you mean by "idealog" --- You seem to be directing that at me.

Penguino used the word, but allow me...

"idealogue - One given to fanciful ideas or theories; a theorist; a spectator. "
www.dictionary.com

I'm a registered democrat but I am sure that you are aware that I routinely point out the hypocrisy within the democratic party and candidates.

I haven't, but ok...

 

[russ_watters]

I definitely want to see the electoral college abolished. I personally feel that it is very silly. I would like a majority, maybe a certain percentage needed, and if not met then a run off.

So what if the highest percent any candidate gets is say 15 percent and let’s say this guy is a Hitler all over again. Do you really want to take that chance?

Just to make sure we're all on the same page:

Majority: 50.000...1%
Plurality: One vote more than the next guy.

 

[russ_watters]

Iraq doesn't even have a constitution.

Ask again tomorrow.

 

[russ_watters]

I should note that my problem isn't with the electoral college per se; it is with the winner-take-all system of apportioning electoral votes. The reason being that for every presidential election I have been old enough to participate in, the winner of California was never in anything close to doubt and it frankly made no difference whatsoever who I voted for or whether or not I even voted. A system that disempowers voters in highly partisan states and places so much emphasis on the 'swing-states' is a bad system. I wouldn't mind the college so much if they would just apportion votes according to the percentages won, instead of doing it winner-take-all.

To put that in perspective, the Electoral College system, today, favors Republicans (I guess that should be obvious after Election 2000). The Winner-take-all system means that victory margins in individual states are not taken into account. Since California and New York are so heavily liberal, the victory margins there for democrats are generally substantial (1.3 million votes in California and 1.5 million votes in New York in 2000). That means a Republican must win significantly more states, but significantly less total votes to win the election.

 

[loseyourname]

Are you trying to set a new record for most consecutive posts, Russ, or are you just trying to get to 10,000 faster?

 

[russ_watters]

I'm a little drunk, I'm in bed, and I'm not quite tired yet.

I also like to separate posts that have completely different subjects or different people responded to, for clarity.

p.s. I lobbied to have Politics Forum posts not counted in the post-count, since they are a subset of GD and not germane to the forum. I was shot-down.

 

[GENIERE]

I voted “no” because it is a moot topic. The individual states would never consent to the diminishment of their rights.

My personal preference would be a direct election with the six top voters installed as president, vice-president, majority and minority leaders of Congress.

A weak federal government is a great federal government.

 

[pattylou]

I know I said I wouldn't argue it, but can I at least ask why you keep bringing it up if you don't think it should be changed?

There are three things that went on in 2000. One is that Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. That is annoying but I'll live with it. Two is that in Florida, there were problems - and some of those problems look illegal to me. If you don't know what I am referring to when I say things like Volusia County, Katherine Harris, or other hot-button Florida 2000 topics, then you may not understand the distinction between 1 and 2 here.

Number 2 I have a problem with! Are we now saying that it is okay to win the *presidency* by having your brother get machinery into the state that will dock 16,000 votes directly from your opponent?

Three is Bush's response to it all. There's nothing legal or illegal about this part of it - but you asked why do I keep bringing up election results - and his response in 2000, which I mentioned earlier on this thread, and 2004 (a "mandate" from the people, "political capital") - these responses are part of the reason. These responses show he is either completely out of touch with reality, or he doesn't care what people think. How else can you justify such a ridiculous attitude?

But number 2 (and the analogous stuff in Ohio in 2004) is my biggest beef. It is unfathomable to me that any American would be content to have a president in office that got there through dishonest means. It makes me sick to think that kerry may have cheated in the primaries.

People always ask "why aren't there ever any good candidates?"

It seems like the answer is staring us in the face. McCain, Dean - these guys were much better than Kerry or Bush. Clark was good, and so on. But if they're good, and if we have technology that can assure an election, we're not going to be seeing the good guys get the nomination, because the crooks will buy it every time.

I'll link this again in the hopes that you'll take a look at soe of the failures of this technology:
http://www.votersunite.org/info/Dieboldinthenews.pdf

 

[BobG]

I voted other. The electoral college is a holdover from the days that the United States was a republic protected against democracy. Originally, the public didn't even get to vote for Senators. Senators were selected by the State Legislature.

The House of Representatives was the democratic arm of the government, while the Senate, President, and Supreme Court were checks and balances against the majority doing something stupid. (If you look at states that allow voters to propose amendments to their state constitution, you'll see there is a somewhat valid reason to keep at least a few of these checks and balances, even today.)

The problem is that the Electoral College probably never fulfilled the purpose it was intended to in the first place and definitely doesn't serve its purpose today. It just pits one 'state' against the other. I'm not certain who the 'state' is, since there's no problem throwing up to 49.999999% of the populace's votes in the wastebasket as if they'd never been cast at all.

The Constitution has to be amended to force the death of the winner take all system. The change would have to be nation wide, since, right now, any state that makes a change from the winner take all system on their own just dilutes the importance of their state.

At a minimum, it ought to be one electoral vote per Congressional distict plus 2 electoral votes for the winner of a state - not a great solution, but better than the current process.

A better idea would be to scrap the Electoral College altogether and go to the automatic runoff system a couple of others mentioned.

 

[SOS2008]

Could you elaborate, please? How would such a system work? It seems to me that you are saying that even if the popular vote is for person "A", the electoral college should utterly disregard their wishes and choose person "B" if they think the electorate is making a bad choice. How would that work?

Loseyourname described the original intent of the electoral college, where the electors would essentially vote based on their personal opinions, with no regard to the wishes of the electorate whatsoever. Is that what you are proposing.

The Electoral College is why Bush was elected, so I am not arguing for the concept because I’m disgruntled (it would be the other way around). The intent versus practice is what needs to be addressed, in other words not throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The intent of the Electoral College is to play the role of tiebreaker and as a check and balance to possible abuse in the popular vote -- whether fraud, or the influence of special interests, or voters who don’t have a clue about the issues. Technology allows better distribution of information, however this can be negative as well, with special interest ads and other forms of disinformation (Faux News), and of course technology such as electronic voting (new ways to tamper with vote counts), etc., so personally I feel a check and balance is needed all the more.

How that is done, including the prevention of fraud in the Electoral College (the possibility of votes being bought, or what have you), I don’t know, but I feel we need it. I admit I’ve been more preoccupied with election reform of the popular vote first. If the popular vote were more reliable, the Electoral College would still be needed, but more for purposes of a tiebreaker. IMO the framers were brilliant, and we should not discount what they were trying to accomplish here.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The intent of the Electoral College is to play the role of tiebreaker and as a check and balance to possible abuse in the popular vote -- whether fraud, or the influence of special interests, or voters who don’t have a clue about the issues. Technology allows better distribution of information, however this can be negative as well, with special interest ads and other forms of disinformation (Faux News), and of course technology such as electronic voting (new ways to tamper with vote counts), etc., so personally I feel a check and balance is needed all the more.

No, the intent was to make the election of the President run by states instead of by voters. Originally the states could set up any method of choosing the electors they wanted; the Legislature could just appoint them, for example. "Democracy" was not an important consideration to the framers; "State's Rights" was much more important to people who feared the establishment of a despotic central government.

 

[SOS2008]

Why the Electoral College was formed:

1) ...The founding fathers were afraid of direct election to the Presidency. They feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers:

It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possesses the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.

...Hamilton and the other founders believed that the electors would be able to insure that only a qualified person becomes President. They believed that with the Electoral College no one would be able to manipulate the citizenry. It would act as check on an electorate that might be duped. Hamilton and the other founders did not trust the population to make the right choice. The founders also believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of being a group that met only once and thus could not be manipulated over time by foreign governments or others.

---------

2) The Electoral College is also part of compromises made at the convention to satisfy the small states. Under the system of the Electoral College each state had the same number of electoral votes as they have representative in Congress, thus no state could have less then 3. The result of this system is that in this election the state of Wyoming cast about 210,000 votes, and thus each elector represented 70,000 votes, while in California approximately 9,700,000 votes were cast for 54 votes, thus representing 179,000 votes per electorate. Obviously this creates an unfair advantage to voters in the small states whose votes actually count more then those people living in medium and large states.

http://www.multied.com/elections/Electoralcollgewhy.html

“All forms of popular government previous to ours turned into tyrannies. Whenever the people ruled directly, in their own name and in their own interests, the rights of the minority were in jeopardy.”

Address to the Ohio Electoral College
Ohio Senate Chamber, Columbus, Ohio
December 18, 2000
by: Peter W. Schramm

http://www.ashbrook.org/articles/schramm-electoralcollege.html

Those who favor state’s rights should favor the Electoral College. Also, the Electoral College serves as a check and balance similar to the Senate and the House in congress.

I should clarify that the Electoral College was not created to be a tie breaker, but rather in the event of a dead heat in the popular vote, it plays this role, and

“In the event that no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, the decision falls, under the 12th Amendment, to the House of Representatives.”

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/electoralcoll.htm

". . . if there be more than one [candidate having] an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President." –U.S. Constitution Article II, Section 1

The problem is a tyrant has manipulated public opinion and come to power anyway, so something needs to be adjusted.

 

[Townsend]

The problem is a tyrant has manipulated public opinion and come to power anyway, so something needs to be adjusted.

I agree...the people need to have more than just two options. I wish there was a way to give a third candidate a real chance at taking office.

Perhaps political parties should just be abolished...

What does everyone think of that idea?

 

[Smurf]

I agree...the people need to have more than just two options. I wish there was a way to give a third candidate a real chance at taking office.
Perhaps political parties should just be abolished...
What does everyone think of that idea?

I think it's a great idea. While we're at it we mine as well abolish the rest of the government too.

Other ways you might consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation#Methods_of_proportional_representation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Multiple-winner_methods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Single_transferable_vote_proportional_representation

 

[Townsend]

I think it's a great idea. While we're at it we mine as well abolish the rest of the government too.

That's it? No reason for what you say?

Other ways you might consider:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_representation#Methods_of_proportional_representation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Multiple-winner_methods
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_system#Single_transferable_vote_proportional_representation

I have...I think they all suck...

 

[Smurf]

That's it? No reason for what you say?

It's a matter of convenience really. It'd be really expensive and take a lot of work to rebuild the government system without parties. So let's just not rebuild it at all. Come on, be lazy townsend. You know you want it.

Meanwhile we can spend the money on a new big screen TV for everyone.

 

[SOS2008]

I agree...the people need to have more than just two options. I wish there was a way to give a third candidate a real chance at taking office.
Perhaps political parties should just be abolished...
What does everyone think of that idea?

I'm thinking about this...interesting thought. I've never thought of it before. I've always argued for more parties. Maybe I like the concept of platforms so as to help clarify what a candidate stands for. The money is a problem. I don't know if anyone remembers Senator DeConcini from Arizona--one of the first to push for limitations on this. I had the pleasure of meeting with him in a small group for about an hour and this was what we discussed -- How to allow more individuals access to public service. This is a sad aspect of our system.