The debate whether Electoral College should be abolished has resurfaced. Do you think it should be abolished?
I am on the fence about Electoral College. I find that if the founding fathers put it in the original constitution that it is a good idea or has good intentions. It has worked for us as a nation since its inception and even though presidents that got the popular vote did not win because of Electoral College it is still has history. On the other hand, without Electoral College we would not have Bush as a president. Makes you think does it not. LOL. But seriously, I am caught. I don’t want to abolish an old tradition and system that works just because I as a voter did not get what I wanted. But I do because the only way a vote counts to me if the popular vote is what is taken into account. I think the popular vote should outweigh Electoral College. I think this would even encourage more people to vote. They would feel like they have a voice. Does anyone else have an opinion?
This stems from the recent decision by NJ to endorse the popular vote compact.
Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080114/ap_on_re_us/popular_vote;_ylt=AoV28r...
The Electoral was put in place because the Founding Fathers didn't trust the American population. The only federal officials that the people had a say in was the House of Representatives. Of course, I still don't see much of a reason to trust the general population, but since they're voting anyway, I don't see the need for the third party.
"A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything."
Friedrich Nietzsche
The electoral college would be able to make deals, form coalitions, and elect a president. A straight popular vote could have a minority candidate (think Adolph Hitler) that a majority did not support elected much more easily if the vote was fragmented.
It is easy to lose sight of this possibility with the two party system giving us only two viable choices lately. When you consider tinkering with the current system you have to look at the examples from other systems as well as the immediate past in the USA.
Why do you want more people to vote? Do you think the people that barely pay attention, and are apathetic, make better choices?
I am on the fence about the electoral college, as well. I feel like it takes the importance of popular vote out of the equation, making America not a true democracy. The way it works, for those who aren't really sure, is that each state is assigned an electoral vote, based on population. For example, California has 55 votes, Arizona has 10 and Alaska has three. Now, say California votes tallied 33 million for the republican and 32 million for the democrat. Those 55 votes all go toward whoever that republican candidate was. Now Arizona only has 12 million votes and all go toward the democrat. He gets their electoral votes. When all the popular votes are counted, the Democrat has 970 million and the Republican 960 million. But because so many of the states the electoral votes came from were large, the Republican got more electoral votes and thus, wins the election.
Okay, as it stands now, that is what happens. It has happened a couple times, including this last election where Bush barely won, only on electoral votes. It is great, in theory, because it is easier to count and determine which of the 538 electoral college votes go where. And it is cut and dried. With the exception of Maine and Nebraska, all votes from each state go with one candidate. Those votes may go based on one person sneezing and punching the wrong name on the ballot card. 55 votes, if it were in California, could go to a candidate based on a mistake.
My personal opinion is that the electoral college is a good thing, unless the public wants something else. I would have moved to Canada had John Kerry been elected president of the US, but if that is what America wanted, they damned themselves.
The people should make their own decisions and based on those decisions, pay the consequences incurred. But that's just my opinion.
It's not the decisions you make that determine what kind of person you are. Its how you handle the consequences of those decisions.
I support the process of the Electoral College. It keeps mass numbers of dolts in a city in one state from cancelling the vote of people living in another state.
Why should my vote in Oklahoma be cancelled out by the vote of someone in new york city? As it is, I don't like that my vote is cancelled out by people in oklahoma city! lol.
Electoral College systems also help combat voter fraud.
If there is immense voter fraud in IL (which has a HUGE history of demcorat led voter fraud, including 'zombie voters' which are votes cast by people who are dead.), it may affect IL and the electoral college votes, but the numbers of votes won't affect the outcome of president itself (except who the electoral college votes from that one state go for)
The electoral college is getting to be too outdated and too risky. We need to just vote by popular vote and not worry about the electoral college.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
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But... it is the electoral college that helps us fight the risk of election fraud.
As it stands, you'd have to commit voter fraud in MANY states, on a big scale in each state, in order to turn an election.
It'd just take large voter fraud in NYC and Chicago to throw an election if we went by popular vote.
The electoral college keeps things from being too risky.
What risk are you referring to?
The electoral college (Congress, essentially) does not have to vote the way the citizens of a state tell it to. As it is, the nation does not agree on a lot of things. And besides, voter faud in popular vote would have to be MASSIVE as we're talking decisive, clear cut gaps between the two candidates of HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS. I give people a lot of credit, but it would still take a massive effort to commit voter faud on the scale that you're talking about.
When it comes down to it, I think that America needed the electoral college before the internet and various other resourses became available. And when you think about it, it makes a little bit of sense. BUT there have been times where the popular vote and the electoral college have disagreed and still times when the electorates voted the wrong way.
But I don't believe in a government as powerful as the current US government. More power to the citizens, I say.
Nicholas Aden
Self-Promotion
Click to send Hate Mail
That power is up to the states themselves. They can determine how the Electoral College votes. For some states, it is by pure popular vote, for others is it by number of districts, etc.
They would need alot of stuffed ballots, but they would only need to do it in a few cities... NYC, Chicago or maybe Boston would take care of the problem. As only half of the voting-eligable population DOES vote, you'd never be able to prove that those 140,000 votes weren't legally cast.
In that case, one large act of voter fraud (not unheard of, look at the history of voting in chicago and reference the phrase "Vote Early and Vote Often". Such an act would be able to directly sway the entire election.
By having state by state election via the Electoral College, you are able to fend off such acts. Voting Fraud would have to not only be on a large scale, but in multiple cities in different states in order to make a difference.
I don't mind the power of the government, specifically its might. However, I understand your point. I do agree that governmental intervention needs to be reduced, as does our dependence upon social programs.
But then, I'm an evil Conservative.
The electoral college (Congress, essentially)
The electorial college is not Congress and is not even close.
The Constitution delegates to each state the power to choose how their delegates to the electoral college are selected. Each State gets one for delegate for each Congress person and one for each Senator. A small State like Wyoming therefore gets three (One congress person plus two Senators) and a large State like California gets 55 (53 Congress persons plus two Senators).
But these people are completely different people from the Congress people. Each State chooses them differently. Most states have some version of "winner take all". If a state has 17 electoral votes, the Republicans put up a slate of 17 and the Democrats put up a slate of 17 and the Greens put up a slate of 17, etc. Whichever Party wins the popular vote gets o send all 17 of their deleates to the electoral college. Occasionally one of these delegates is "faithless" and defects.
A better system than "winner take all" might be a proportional representation system. If the Republicans won 30% of the vote they might get 30% of the delegates to the Electoral College. That is for each State to decide but it would get you much closer to a direct popular vote.
If we go to just the popular vote, the elections will focus on just a few large states. The candidates will spend all there time in large cities in New York, Texas, Florida, California and Illinois. We will end up with a President that only represents the people who live in cities in a few states.
The rest of the country will be ignored and essentially disenfrancised. When people feel disenfranchised, then they stop believing in government and then Democracy stops working.
The electoral college strikes a balance between large states and small states by giving an electoral vote for each Senator and a vote for each Representative. Large States get many more votes because they have many more Representatives but the system gives politicians a reason to take notice of the smaller states too because those 100 votes for Senators add up.. The system is genius and should not be messed with.
Yes, I think it should be abolished. It's outlived it's time and if Diebold is any indication, it should prove that they have found a way to pervert the system as it is. ABOLISH the ELECTORAL COLLEGE!
If your fear is election fraud, surely you understand that the Electoral College is what defends the voting proces from such fraud?
So that, as I've noted previously, voter fraud in a few select cities does not throw an entire election, but just the votes from that state.
Now, if you WANT to talk about election fraud, we can talk about the long history of it in democrat controlled IL, or the ACORN workers who were found with bags of voter registration cards (each one for 'REpublican') that they did not turn in (which is election fraud and very illegal, as that person is now NOT registered and in many states cannot vote.), or the ACORN worker who was arrested with a filled ballot box in their trunk.
Are you sure you want to talk election fraud with someone who remembers previous elections?
The Electoral College makes the potential for voter fraud much greater. For example, in the 2000 election, millions of voters in states like Texas and California knew that they might as well stay home because their votes count very little and, essentially, millions of people in large non swing states have no real influence with their votes. That election was really decided in Florida, where allegations of voter disenfranchisement and fraud were rampant (black neighborhoods having lineups many hours long, for example, in a state where a candidate`s brother was governing the state}. And the election could be turned one way or the other by as few as 164 votes being miscounted (whether accidentally OR on purpose} . Essentially, we may never really know who rightfully won that election since tat number of votes is a tiny fraction of the margin of error when divided by 100 million votes.
If we had gone by counting the votes of all 100 million voters equally, any fraud would have had to have been massive in scale (a quarter million mistakes} in order to turn the election,
The fact that a vote in one state can count four times as much as a vote in another state gives an unfair disadvantage to some states. This can result in states whose votes count the least tending to have more than their fair share of taxes taken by the government to subsidize the desires of states whose voters count more than they should. For example, a ``Bridge to Nowhere`` can be built in a state whose votes count extra, while a city with millions of disenfranchised voters watches its crucial transit infrastructure crumble from lack of funds.
The swing states (Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Michigan} also get far more than their share of attention and promises during the elections, since millions of voters in decidedly red or blue states have no chance of influencing the election.
The Electoral College may have seemed like a good idea to suit 18th century politics in a collection of mostly rural colonies, but today it has outgrown its usefulness and should be replaced by a system where everyone`s vote really counts.
President Bush won the election, as attested to by the courts.
You still haven't accepted that, have you?
No, The electoral college wards off voter fraud by limiting its effectiveness to just the state in question, rather than throwing an entire election by work in one city.
You mention states that voters decided 'not to go vote' because their vote didn't matter. That idea of theirs is wholly stupid and if someone believes that, maybe they shouldn't vote. Makes mine count all the more.
However, note that the people who wouldn't vote in CA are the opposite of people who wouldn't vote in TX in terms of likely political leanings, in which case their votes would cancel each others' out in any national election.
Please tell me that this isn't still about Gore having lost (despite his constant lawsuits and attempts to recount votes already recounted multiple times, in which he continued to lose)
It has only been 8 years.... those on the left should be able to deal with President Bush legally winning (not once, but TWICE) by now.
continuing to claim that the election was illegal, or that it shouldn't count, or that he 'really didn't win' is silly.
at best.
For example, in the 2000 election, millions of voters in states like Texas and California knew that they might as well stay home because their votes count very little and, essentially, millions of people in large non swing states have no real influence with their votes.
There are two issues in play here and you are confusing one with the other. The first is the electoral college and the second is the winner take all approach to allocating delegates to the electoral college.
The former is specified by the US Constitution. The US Consitution also delegates the authority on how delegates to the electoral college are selected to the states. California and most other states have decided to have these delegates selected on a "winner take all basis". If California wanted to, they could change their law and have the delegates selected on a proportion of the vote basis. Or they could do it like Maine which has a hybrid of the two approaches.
The reason people in California know that they might as well stay home is because the State votes overwhelmingly Democrat. Therefore, it is a foregone conclusion that all 55 of California's delegates are going to goto the Democrats. There is little reason for a California Republican to vote and not even too much reason for any particular Democrat to vote. The few Democrats who bother to vote beat the even fewer Republicans that show up.
But if California changed its law to select delegates based on the proportion voting Democrat and the proportion voting Republican there would be a lot more reason for everybody to vote. The Republicans might beable to get 15 out of 55 votes if they turned out rather than always getting zero.
Right now there is little reason for a Presidential candidate to show up in California. The Democrats know the have already won and the Republicans know they have already lost so why would either bother to show up? But any large state which starts allocating its votes on a proportional basis automatically becomes an important swing state because the candidates are going to be fighting for their share of a very large prize.
Texas, being overwhelmingly Republican, has the same problem in reverse.
It seems to me your argument is not so much with the Electoral College as with how the various states select their delegates to the electoral college. The former rquires a Federal Constitutional Amendment to change. That is unlikely to happen because all of the small states will fight it like crazy so it will never be ratified. The latter can be changed at the State level and would probably be a good change that encouraged participation in our Republic.
hmmmm if the electoral college prevents fraudulent elections then why is George W. Bush in office? Obviously it doesn't.
``hmmmm if the electoral college prevents fraudulent elections then why is George W. Bush in office? Obviously it doesn't.``
You`re absolutely right. Lance points out that a few hundred thousand votes miscounted in several states could have changed the results in 2000. But what he seems to fail to notice is that, with the system we have, just one unscrupulous or neglectful person in a single voting station in Florida hiding, losing or adding ONE small pocketful of votes could have, and in fact may have, changed the result in 2000.
The EC system doesn`t protect from fraud. In fact, it makes the potential for fraud far too easy.
Yes, like ACORN in MN, PA, Il and a few other states, hiding Republican registration cards that were required by law to be turned in (which meant that the republicans in question couldn't vote on election day as they were not registered and not all states allow registration at the ballot box.)
However, we do not live in a mob rule democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic.
Remember that the same rules you desire can serve to harm you. After all, Kennedy only won by 112,000 or so votes. Yet you don't hear about demands for recounts or demands for mob-rule voting to count over that of the Electoral college.
No, The Electoral College serves us well, just as it has served well for many, MANY elections.
If your beef is that a state goes all for one candidate or the other, then your beef is on the state's right to determine how their electoral votes are issued, not the Electoral College itself.
if you happen to live in california, please do support changing the process for the distribution of electoral college votes by the state of california to be preresentative of how the voters vote.
Let those Republican votes count.
Um, because he won legally, twice?
Because You don't like him doesn't change that.
Your points got me to thinking. If Electoral College was split where in each state whoever voted for the democrat's canidate their Electoral College would go to that person and the other half would go to the republican candiate or third party, would that work?
"I think therefore, I am DANGEROUS!!!!"
Tauruschild, we would still be left with the problem we have now that a vote in one state counts quadruple a vote in another state as far as how many electoral votes get counted. Any segment of the US population that lives more in urban states (those who are black or gay or Jewish or the highly educated, etc., or simply the urban vote itself} get undervalued in the election counts.
Your comment contradicts itself.
states with large urban areas (and therefore larger populations) get MORE electoral College votes than those without large populations.
Therefore the votes in the 'highly urban areas' that you like to believe are 'undervalued' are actually not. Those states are given MORE power in elections.
It takes only 165,000 Wyoming residents to make one electoral college vote, but it takes 615,000 Californians to count for one vote.
I`ll try to explain it to you using small numbers.
Let`s say the students are sitting in 3 rows in the gym and they are about to vote for class president between either Jack or Jill.
Row 1 has 9 students sitting in its desks.
Row 2 has 7 students.
Row 3 is a long row with 32 students.
So now let`s say that when the vote is counted, in Row 1 the vote is 4 for Jack and 5 for Jill.
Row 2 counts 3 for Jack and 4 for Jill.
Row 3 is unanimous (all 32 votes} for Jack.
Who wins. Well, you might think that since the vote was in favor of Jack (by a vote of 39 to 9} that Jack wins hands down.
But this principal is counting by an system similar to the Electoral College. So he says, since Row 3 is a long row, I`ll count their votes as a weight of six, but I`ll count the much smaller Row 1 as a weight of five and Row 2 as a weight of three. For each row, the majority vote gives all its weight to one candidate.
According to your argument, well Row 3 is longest so that`s why they got the ``advantage`` of more EC votes than the others. But the problem is that each person in Row 3 counts much less than the other students. Jill gets a weight of 8 and Jack only gets a weight of 6 when the EC tally is counted, even though FAR more students voted for Jack than for Jill. He got a huge majority in a big, long row, and barely lost by just one vote in two tiny rows.
Something similar could easily happen under the EC system, where a leader is elected who is opposed by the vast majority of Americans..
I find this to be a statement that is desitned to be an insulting statement. That is why I flagged the comment.
As to your idea that inner city california people get 'less of a vote' than those in wyoming, note that Wyoming has 3 Electoral College Votes and California has 55.
Tell me which state has more of a say in the voting process when it comes to President?
"The 11 most populous states have a majority of the electoral college votes, enough to elect the President."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_population
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I would like you to spell out the scenario by which:
"Something similar could easily happen under the EC system, where a leader is elected who is opposed by the vast majority of Americans."
It seems to be a little far fetched, a slight minority can win, a vast majority cannot lose.
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Do you think we should also change the Congress and Senate that follow the exact same ratios?
I think I am far more in favor of a federal system than I am a direct democracy. Many ideas being tried by just a few states before they get applied to the entire country just seems like a good idea to me.
Can you imagine the restrictive laws that we would have had if we were not protected from majority rule by our federal Constitution and the dificulty passing legislation it creates?
"I would like you to spell out the scenario by which...... a leader is elected who is opposed by the vast majority of Americans."
Okay, I`ll make a hypothetical future example using rounded numbers and stereotyped names to make it easy, but using the same EC weights and voting participation rates as recent elections, also to make it easy to follow.
Let`s say that we have three candidates named Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer, and a theocratic tyrant named Ben Ladden.
Most Americans would like either Finn or Sawyer to win and their differences are minor, but Ladden is widely hated by everyone except his extremist followers, who have managed to develop a fanatical group of 6% of the US population. That 6% follows his wishes with zeal in an effort to turn the US into a Saudi style theocracy. His mastermind plan includes migration and emigration of his followers into rural states in strategically planned numbers in order to maximize their power.
At election time, Ladden doesn`t even bother running in the eleven most populated states, where most Americans live. Consequently, in those states, Finn or Sawyer are elected everywhere with 100% of votes going to the combination of those two candidates.
But he has strategically positioned 18 million of his followers into the other 39 states. In those states, Finn gets a combined total of 12 million votes (among voters whose second choice would have been Sawyer). Sawyer gets 14 million votes (among voters whose second choice would have been Finn), and Ladden gets his 18 million votes. The way the votes are tallied, he gets nearly all of the EC votes in all of those 39 states where, ironically most voters despise him
In this scenario, a candidate who is hated by 94% of the American population ends up winning the presidency.
Of course, this EXACT scenario may be extreme and unlikely, but the point is that any less-than-optimal result along a continuum, from slightly unsatisfactory to extremely lopsided, theoretically can occur. If the EC system continues, given enough time, eventually Americans will have presidents from time to time who were the last choice of a strong majority. Though my example made it an extreme, it doesn`t require a mastermind plan to easily end up with situations where a more likely sixty or seventy percent hate the winner.
Than even I had in mind.
Here are the problems:
1) Population of the 39 smallest states is well over 100,000,000 so those 18 million fifth columnists could not swing a majority or even over a third. If they went to the smallest states and acheived the tiniest of majorities they could control 69 electoral votes which is only equal to 2 or 3 of the top eleven states. To do slightly better you could assume that he could get a population equal to his people moving in to move out of these states, but I don't see how he could get them to do it.
2) Even in your scenario he has a plurality of electoral votes not a majority. In the situation you envision the Electoral college would be able to save the day, because the electors are empowered to make deals, and form alliances. Simply put the other two candidate could team up and use the majority of votes they controlled to defeat him. It would require they choose between each other rather than allow the 'theocratic tyrant' to win. If the popular vote alone controlled the outcome a candidate with a plurality would win no matter how much the majority hated him.
Even this far fetched scene is not possible unless they plan meticulously for over a decade, get the parties to play along and have atleast five times the numbers you use. If this guy's name was Pancho Villa Laden he might get a lot closer numbers wise. ;-)
The 2000 election was not the first time a minority won the whitehose. The judgement that electors can exercise is one of the checks and ballances that make our less democratic system more stable than others that follow the will of the people more closely.
``Population of the 39 smallest states is well over 100,000,000...``
But that`s about as many people as the number who vote in the ENTIRE COUNTRY.
Remember that I said we are assuming that voting rates are the same as in recent elections, which means that about 44 million votes are being counted in those 39 states. As I said, I was rounding some numbers and simplifying the scenario. I know that populations won`t be exactly the same in another election and that EC votes won`t be exactly the same weight, and I am basing this particular example on the assumption that backroom deals aren`t made between the two most popular candidates` electors. I did all this to make it simple to explain, which is also why I gave the three imaginary characters ridiculous names to stereotype one candidate as unmistakably ``the bad guy.``
Definitely, I could alter the imaginary scenario`s numbers of states pursued by candidates, describe differently the degree of dislikeability of the least popular candidate or of any schemes he might devise, change figures for the degree of voter participation, etc., etc., etc., in such a way that a much more likely scenario emerges in which a candidate hated by, say, 65% of Americans easily becomes the leader with a solid and incontestable majority (not just a plurality} in the EC.
``Even in your scenario he has a plurality of electoral votes not a majority.``
In my scenario he has the largest plurality in 39 smaller states, all but two of which are Winner Take All.
``In the situation you envision the Electoral college would be able to save the day, because the electors are empowered to make deals, and form alliances.``
Well, in the year 2000, George Bush got a 49% plurality in Florida, Al Gore got a 49% minority, and Nader got 2%. Are you telling me that there was a loophole that would have allowed Nader`s supporters to block Bush`s lead after the election was done? Does the winner of a plurality not take all the votes in Florida?
My understanding is that the candidate in my imaginary scenario can win a majority in the EC by winning a plurality in a high enough number of states to give him the majority number of EC votes. Unless I`m mistaken and there is a loophole you can tell me about, I`m not aware of any way that coalitions can be made between other parties to trump his electors at the state level after the election.
`` If the popular vote alone controlled the outcome a candidate with a plurality would win no matter how much the majority hated him.``
Well, I was assuming that we would devise a system in which a candidate would only win with majority support. I do see your point, though. If we changed the method of casting a ballot, it would be easy to rank candidates and determine who has a majority mandate, but I suppose all the electors would have right now are exit polls.
``Even this far fetched scene is not possible unless they plan meticulously for over a decade...``
There are fanatical groups that have spent decades already meticulously planning devious schemes, some of which have had horrible consequences, so some variation of that part doesn`t seem so far fetched to me.
So, you made up a situation, made up numbers and want us to accept it as possible..... how?
``So, you made up a situation, made up numbers and want us to accept it as possible..... how?``
Yes, many of the names and specific numbers were hypothetical, but theoretically possible (I made that clear}, but the formula that I inserted those numbers into is very real. It is simply the Electoral College system that we have been using to choose a president, and I used the same EC weights and populations for the formula as have existed in recent elections. Those numbers and the system were not imaginary at all. All I did was insert some potential numbers into the formula.
The question I was answering was asking how it is possible for a president to be elected with the support of a small minority of the population. Scenarios even more extreme than my example are theoretically possible. But as I said, being elected with opposition of 60 or 70 % of the population is much less unlikely.
it is also theoretically possible to jump to the moon... that doesn't mean we need to worry about it each time we skip rope.
We haven't had a president elected by a 'small minority of the population'
Kerry lost in 2004 because he couldn't get more than 1/4 of the population that COULD vote to vote for him.
Gore lost in 2000, despite having a TINY majority of popular votes, because our voting process (rightly so) isn't based on Mob Rule.
No, instead, to keep the states like Oklahoma, Wyoming, Colorado and other states with fewer electoral votes from being wholly outweighed by states like New York and California (which, despite popular opinion in New York and California, are not the only states in the US that matter), the Electoral College gives each state a voice. Given that there are 100 million people in the majority of the 'smaller states' and if half vote, that's 50 million. That means that those 12 million planted voters still won't get those states, even if voting is split right down the middle, with 25 million for each candidiate.
Your example is faulty and not really near practical application. It REALLY just doesn't work the way you're suggesting that it does.
You still haven't provided any evidence to suggest why we should get rid of the Electoral College.
The closest that you've done is suggest that votes from the electoral college should be based on percent of votes in the state, which is a state issue not a federal issue.
"My understanding is that the candidate in my imaginary scenario can win a majority in the EC by winning a plurality in a high enough number of states to give him the majority number of EC votes. Unless I`m mistaken and there is a loophole you can tell me about, I`m not aware of any way that coalitions can be made between other parties to trump his electors at the state level after the election."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College
Even on the first ballot electors can vote as their concience dictates(see faithless elector). If no MAJORITY (of electoral votes, not popular) is created the process is as follows:
If no candidate for President receives a majority (270 votes) of the 538 possible electoral votes, then (pursuant to the Twelfth Amendment) the new House of Representatives is required to go into session immediately to vote for President. In this case, the House of Representatives chooses from the three candidates who received the most electoral votes. Each state delegation has a single vote, decided by majority decision (an evenly divided state delegation is considered to have abstained). A candidate receiving the majority of votes of all states (currently 26) is declared the President-elect. If no candidate receives a majority, the House proceeds to a second ballot and continues balloting until a candidate receives a majority of the state unit votes. This situation would most likely occur only when more than two candidates receive electoral votes, but could theoretically happen in a two-person contest if each received 269 electoral votes.
In your example the unpopular candidate would also need a majority of states delegations in the house to support him. Don't bother to stretch out how a person with only a tiny minority could do that, because they couldn't.
My support of the current process is not support for Bush in 2000.
It is support for any rules that make it harder for a manipulation by a upstart to succeed. The people are by their sheeplike nature easier to fool than the politicians. Bless their black flabby evil hearts.
Chillbill, I understand that there are alternatives if a candidate wins less than 270 votes in the ``big`` vote of all 570 electors.
But any, or theoretically even all, of the people who have by that time ended up being those electors can by that time already have been voted in by just a plurality from 48 of their own states, is that not so?
I think the states can all set their own rules within limits of constitutional challenge. I didn't find a reference to what each states rules are regarding plurality on a quick search.
The point was just that even 39 smallest states backing the fanatic would be a minority of electoral votes, and throw it into the house. Aditionaly even if he could carry the 40 smallest states only a few electors would have to see what was going on and rebel for a blatant manipulation to fail.
Your example is a better example of why the current system is superior than why it should be replaced.
I do see one mistake in my calculation and that is that a candidate would carry a majority by winning the 39 and a half (not just 39} smallest states. Of course, a plurality could be carried with much fewer than 39 small states..
There were small and large states when the Constitution was written. Obviously the
Founding Fathers understood the same math that you just described.
They DELIBERATELY designed the system so that the President was the leader of all the states, not just the product of the larger ones.
For those of you saying that the process is outdated, why? Nothing has changed. There are still large states and small states. Without the Electoral College, the Presidential campaigns will be conducted strictly in the five largest state. The other States will have little to say about the President and because they have little say, they will have little reason to buy into the social contract.
I hope you knock yourself out trying to get it changed. It will require a Constitutional Amendment to get it changed. A Constitutional Amendment requires ratification by 75% of the 50 states. 75% of 50 is 37.5 meaning that it will take 38 states to ratify your amendment or only 13 to block it.
Why would Wyoming, Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Deleware, Montana, Rhode Island, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah (listed from smaller to larger) even consider ratifying a Constitutional Amendment THAT WOULD DILUTE THEIR POWER to select the President and hand it to the larger states? I listed 17 states because that would be 34 votes in the Senate which would also be enough to deny a Constitutional Amendment.
That is a Constitutional Amendment that is never going to happen because all the small states are going to be against it.
It is barely worth discussing it because is so unrealistic.
At first glance, it seems impossible as you say, Jack, but we don`t really need to change the Constitution in order to elect the most desired candidate for president.
Here`s why... Two thirds of Americans live in the 17 states that are underrepresented relative to their population. The underrepresented states have a combined total of EC votes that is enough to determine the elections. All they would need is to combine in a pact to use their EC votes for whichever candidate most Americans want on a national level.
That would change the situation so that there are no more swing states and no more overrepresented states. Never again would an election be only about Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire and Iowa. The votes of every individual voter in all 50 states and DC would become of equal value to candidates. The EC would then be only a technicality to formalize the installation of the president most Americans chose.
But of those 17 states several, almost half, would be ill-served by such a pact.
Florida (4), Pennsylvania (6), Ohio (7), Michigan(8), Virginia (12) and Indiana (15) and Arizona (16) are all currently, or fast becoming, swing states. These states are extremely well served by the status quo because as swing states they play a disproportionate roll in the Presidential selection process.
It is hard to imagine these states that enjoy disproportionate power making common cause with the states like New York, New Jersey, Texas, Massachusetts and California which because they tend to vote over-whelmingly monolythically for one party or the other end up being paid little attention during the Presidential race because the outcome of their elections is already known.
There is no good reason for these 17 states to work together. This looks just as hard as the Constitutional Amendment.
But the situation about the under-representation of states like California vs Wyoming is over-stated anyway. That is because almost all of the 12 million illegal aliens in America are concentrated in these large states. These illegal immigrants get counted in the census and even though they are not citizens, they are used in the calculation which apportions members of Congress to the States. As a result of the last census I believe both Utah and Montana lost representatives to California because of California's large illegal population. As a result, each of those states also lost a vote in the Electorial college and I think California gained two. The end of result is that non-citizens living illegally are being represented at the expense of citizens living in Montana.
Jack, I see your point. It seems to me that the issue you bring up can also be used as justification for individual voters essentially to ``vote`` to become a swing state. In other words, if enough people vote for whoever is the underdog (among the two big contenders} in their state, disregarding even that they may not like that candidate, then their state becomes a swing state and gets more than their share of attention and promises and visits during the next election cycle.
The system we have, for this and a hundred other reasons, turns the whole election into a chess game, where many, or most, people aren`t voting for the candidate they really want, but, rather, use strategies in their votes according to moves they expect others to make.
Kind of like the "Anybody but Bush" campaign in 2004.
Or you could just press your State legislators to unilaterally implement a "proportion of the popular vote" method of selecting electors or even a hybrid system like Maine's.
If a State like California went to such a system they have so many electorial votes that the candidates would be forced to show up and compete for them.
I like strategic voting. I live in Wyoming and like California, our vote is monolithic. It is a pre-ordained fact that the Republican is going to win. While I generally prefer the Republican over the Democrat, I seldom like the particular Republican that the Party is offering. I felt strongly that way in 2004 and I suspect I am going to hate all the candidates offered by both parties in 2008. Because I know before the votes are ever cast or counted that the Republican is going to win, I am left with freedom to cast my vote for some other purpose such as to send a message (small though it most certainly is). In 2004 I voted for the Constitution Party and in 2008 I'll probably vote for whomever is not a Republican or Democrat. In the 1970's the comedian Pat Poulsen could be counted on to run for President in every election. If there is nobody else to choose from on the ballot maybe I will write in Pat. I want the Parties to understand that their is some proportion of the electorate that cares enough to show up and vote but is disgusted by the crappy choices they are offering.
I think the electoral vote has its purpose however I do think the popular vote should take precedence if there is a difference. If all 50 states would practice in 'winner take all', the popular vote would be more represented. If that was the case, then if people didn't vote because they felt their vote didn't count , they would have noone to blame but themselves if the candiate they want in office didn't get voted in.