Should the Electoral College be reformed or eliminated?

[Smurf]

I like the athenian idea of limited citizenry, where not everyone has the right to vote just because they've lived in the country for X years since or since birth and have achieve X years of age. And whoever shows up gets to vote.

Now if only I can come up with a feasible way to implement it into a large nation and to do it without making it too easy for it to develop into an oppressive oligarchy

 

[BobG]

Also, I am opposed to representative democracy; I want direct democracy instead where we elect officials, but then these officials will only suggest policies, and then we the citizens will directly vote on them. So, if Bush suggests we invade a country, instead of Congress voting on it, we the people will directly vote on it. This way, the power stays in our hands, not the politicians. The argument though will come up that most people are too stupid to vote, which is true. So on one hand, if we let politicians decide everything, they will continue to lie to the public and push policies that serves them a lot more than the voters. On the other hand, if we let the citizens vote, they will support bad policies because they are too stupid. So, it's a double edged sword.

There's a couple problems with direct democracy.

1) It's inefficient. Your government can either do things just once a year or you have the added expense of conducting several votes during the year. Your government winds up crippled and unable to make any kind of immediate decision (even slower than government acts, today).

2) It's not as much a matter of stupidity as it is time. How many hours do you spend each week researching all the issues your federal government, your state government, your county government, and your city government now handle. There's no way voters can be experts on all the issues that affect the functioning of government at all the different levels. That's why we outsource the job to people who can devote all their working hours to the issues.

3) Responsible government would be more expensive. Not only would the government have to research what should be done to keep the city, state, and nation going, it would have to pay to get the word out to the public via advertising. Advertising is a poor way to get the message across for any kind of complex issue, plus the sheer number of issues decided by governments will overwhelm voters. Many issues will be decided simply by who can generate the strongest emotions rather than legitimate pros and cons.

With a representative government, power still stays in the voters' hands. If the politician doesn't do a good job, you can get rid of him, usually before he has a chance to do much damage.

Keep in mind, that most local governments do a fairly decent job for their communities. At a national level, it can be frustrating watching members of Congress put the selfish local interests of their own district ahead of national good, but isn't that what you pay your Congressman for? To make sure your community isn't short changed relative to other communities in the nation? If put to a direct vote, would your community vote that the local military base or defense plant be shut down and half the city's jobs lost in order to improve the financial situation of the nation as a whole or would they just be more inefficient pork barrelers?

 

[gnome]

First, it should be mentioned that the people at Physics Forums, who I speculate make up for the most part people with above average IQs, will be a minority voting block and will be overpowered in the elections by the stupid majority, so whatever "ideal" ideas we come up with will have no affect on national policy...

How about a direct popular election in which only Physics Forums members are eligible to vote?

All kidding aside, I think the overall quality of life that the majority of us enjoy shows that our system works pretty well on balance.

 

[SOS2008]

...I oppose the electorial college and only want the popular vote, like in the rest of the world.

I don't know about the rest of the world, but aside from acting as a tie-breaker, the electoral college also provides protection from block voting by special interest groups, like the evangelicals in 2004. That doesn't mean the electoral college couldn't be improved. The proposal made by JoeB would make me feel like my voted counted more.

Also, I am opposed to representative democracy; I want direct democracy instead where we elect officials, but then these officials will only suggest policies, and then we the citizens will directly vote on them.

This concept has been debated over the years, as well as concepts of citizens serving in government similar to jury duty, etc. I like the idea of direct democracy, though the complexity of making it workable has been well covered already.

With regard to checks and balances, I feel our country does well. But the last couple of elections do indicate need for election reforms. For example, I would like federal elections to be uniform (to prevent the Florida Fiasco), and separate (to prevent "wedge" issue fear mongering to manipulate voter turn-out, i.e., props to ban gay marriage). Then there is the matter of re-districting in questionable ways, party targeting of specific offices, and of course, our wonderful media and increasing propaganda.