So, I am no expert on the electoral college, but I was reading a post earlier about how awful the electoral college was and I felt that my comments about the system were not getting heard. SO NOW YOU MUST LISTEN!! MUAHAHAHAHA!! (just kidding!). Anyways, here are my thoughts on why the system isn't that bad (and can be easily fixed) and why it's not going to go away.
First, some background (brought to you by Wikipedia--the sources seem decent, so here goes): the electoral college is a group of people that vote for the president and vice president, and this process is guided by the 12th Amendment. The number of electoral votes a state has is equal to the amount of representative it has in Congress. Electors are elected by popular vote in each state, and they vote for their party (basically, when you vote for a candidate of a certain party, you're really voting for an elector of that same party), although on RARE occasions, the electors do not vote for their party's candidate. A candidate must receive 270 electoral votes to win the election.
Now, I'm sure you can see some problems with this process, the most obvious coming from the 2000 election, when Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral college with 271 votes. However, this problem can be easily remedied with an Amendment that says(not to say changing laws is easy, but at least this solution is straight-forward AND wouldn't require an overhaul of the system AND would rectify the problem of electoral voters who do not vote their party): whichever candidate wins the popular vote can receive, say, 100 electoral votes automatically. Bam, crisis averted, and the most popular candidate wins.
But, another problem arises. People in more populous states have more voting power because their states have more electors.Yet again, this problem can be rectified by state laws that would make it so the proportion of electors in a state for a candidate mirrored the proportion of popular votes for that candidate (so instead of "winning" a state, a candidate would receive the amonut of electoral votes from that state that represented the proportion of voters who supported him/her). Thus, this strategy takes some of the "power" out of swing states as well, and creates a more just system.
Also, our voting system favors a two-party system (sorry Green Party, but Populist William Jennings Bryan is the closest you'll be getting to winning, I think). Now, whether you like it or not, this system does not support a great deal of difference between parties. But the offices of president and vice president are very winner-take-all in an election, and since most Third Parties are regional (such as the Populist Party and even the Progressive Party), they really don't stand a chance anyways. Plus, I have no idea how you would go about changing a two-party system that's been in place for 200+ years.
But, besides the fact that you could tweak the electoral college to vastly improve it, there stands the biggest reason that the electoral college will not go away: the bureaucracy. To overturn the 12th Amendment and create a whole new system of election (which takes 3/4 of the States to ratify) would take loads of time, not too mention getting Congress to agree on a new system of election. Then you still have to figure out who is going to count all the votes (if states don't have the electors, you can be sure they don't want to count the votes for the federal governement--it stops being a privilege). In reality, an overhaul would probably end in chaos and so many election complications (I mean, we had enoug hproblems with new electronic voting booths!) that no politician is going to take this issue on. Sorry folks, but the electoral college is here to stay.
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despite the challenges of overhauling the system i do think it needs to be done...simply because for most of us, the reason for the creation of the electoral college in the first place is no longer valid.
also this post was very...parenthetical (if you know what i mean). =P
--stacie
What can I say? Parentheses are the heart of interjecting, and that's what I love to do!
I agree that an overhaul would be best, but it's just simply not feasible. I think it would create more problems then it would solve. And the system, for the most part, works.
b-money
"A cactus is the opposite of a chair. In my house you can sit anywhere but there."
we do away with the electoral college all together.....THAT would solve a lot of things. No weighing of votes....no "loser gets this many 'bonus' votes"....it's creating too much out of a processd that SHOULD be plain and simple....easy to understand....easy for the average joe to interprate.....
But then again, I suppose that would be giving the people too much power....
"You mean the Americans actually KNOW how the system works?! GASP! IT'S ALL OVER NOW!!"
It's not about taking power away or giving it back, it's more about making the system work. I get the Utopian ideals, but at the same time, consider the logistics of just getting rid of the system. I think it's too much of a strain. I mean, it was pretty hard just to get the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) undone by the 21st (Prohibition lasted 13 years, and was never too popular. It was also much more straightforward to repeal).
I challenge you to come up with a new system of voting that isn't as time consuming as the popular vote and isn't as ridiculous as the electoral college. It's harder than it seems.
Oh, and that bonus points piece, is actually a legitimate change people have advocated before. It's not just Super Mario talk.
b-money
"A cactus is the opposite of a chair. In my house you can sit anywhere but there."
The electoral college has cheated the Democratic Party out of the presidency four times (1824, 1876, 1888, 2000) and it has never cheated any other party. Democrats are suckers if they don't fight it. And the best way to fight it is by supporting the National Popular Vote Plan (www.nationalpopularvote.org).
Also "two-party system" doesn't mean a system in which there are just two parties. The phrase was coined in 1911 to describe the British party system. Great Britain and Canada are also two-party systems. But, they have influential minor parties (the Liberal Democrats in Britain, and the New Democrats in Canada).