In a different thread, I had made some comments about how the electoral college helps to prevent large states from overpowering the interests of small states. Enderw24 mentioned that the electoral college was stupid, and offered to explain.
I am interested; thus, here is the thread.
I’m curious. I wanna hear this too.
Wow! You know, you try and you try to get a pit thread started about you to no avail. But turn your back for one second and BLAM! you’re a great debate!.
Cool. 
Hmmm…give me a few minutes to put my thoughts together on the issue. I’ll try to come up with something entertaining.
Heh, I know the feeling. I figured my opinions would have landed me in the pit a loooooooong time ago. Well, I suppose it has to happen sooner or later. Let’s cross our fingers (heh) 
Why I hate the electoral college
By EnderW24 Esq. III
In the beginning, dinosaurs ruled the earth. OK, they were called the Founding Fathers, but they were both big and fat and they’re all dead now. Some things should die with them.
I believe that the constitution should be fluid. I believe that a number of the Founding Fathers believed this as well. Many wanted a Constitutional Congress every 20 years to go over changes to their draft of “how things should be” and see what changes needed to be made. They basically said “look, we’re not perfect, we can’t predict the future. Let’s make changes as they arise.”
Well, this CC never did come into existence. Not once have we gone back and reexamined what the FF did and figured out if it was the right thing. Doesn’t look like it will happen anytime soon either.
Look, precedent is well and good. In law it’s an absolute must. But at the same time, we should never base our decisions on “well, we’ve always done it this way” and, IMO, we should never base them on what the FF wanted. We should base our decisions on what is right for the time.
So reason #1 of why I hate the electoral college is that we’re using it because we always have because the FF said we should.
That, in itself, doesn’t make it bad though. Just because the FF created it doesn’t make it outdated. Our technology makes it outdated. Wanna know why we have our election in November but swear the president in in January? Because sometimes it took that long to count out the votes and figure out who the winner is! We have the ability to count out 100 million votes nearly instantaneously (um…well, except for last year, but you get the point).
So reason #2 why I hate the electoral college is that it’s outdated and unnecessary. We don’t need someone else voting for us. They can count my vote just fine, thank you.
Reason #3 is that the voters aren’t actually required to vote along popular lines. Yup, if the mood strikes them they could ignore the popular vote and go with minority opinion for their state. They could vote for their great aunt Bertha. They probably won’t be part of the electoral college anymore, but nothing’s stopping them this time.
Reason #4 is that the electoral college invalidates the will of the population. Twice in our history we’ve had someone lose the presidency but had a greater number of votes. That’s just idiocy, to put it bluntly.
Reason #5: My vote doesn’t count. That’s right. It’s all about me. OK, in 1996 I had the option of voting in either KS or WI. I’m not sure, other than a sense of morals, why I didn’t vote in both states, but I know a number of college kids who do or have.
I didn’t vote in KS for two reasons. 1) absentee ballots are counted last, if at all (this should really be reason #5.5 right here). 2) Bob Dole was going to win KS. Plain and simple, no questions asked. Bob Dole was going to take the state. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to vote for him or not, but I knew that if I DIDN’T vote for him, my vote would not count because everyone who votes for someone other than the winner has their ballot effectively thrown in the trash. I didn’t want to see that happening to my vote.
Reason #6 The biggie. The one everyone always touts out in support of the EC. It gives the little states a chance to be heard. Hmm…thinking on this for a bit, I’m going to have to say “no, but thank you for playing. Don’t let Rhode Island hit your ass on the way out.”
Think about this: CA has 27 electoral votes. I think. If not, play along anyway. MO has 5. Again, I think. Whatever, you get the point. One’s big, one’s small. OK, they both have a presidential election and candidate A wins California by one vote. Candidate B wins MO by one vote. They both won by the same amount, popularity wise, but Candidate A now has 27 votes whereas Candidate B only has 5. For the same margin of victory. In other words, the citizens of CA have a more powerful vote than those of MO. Their votes are worth more.
In a popular election, everyone’s vote is equal to everyone else’s vote.
Reason #7, in furtherance of reason #6, it does not give smaller states any greater power. When’s the last time you saw a candidate hit the campaign trails of HI or AL? Hell, have they ever made the trek over to those states? No, of course not, those states don’t hold the electoral votes they need to win the election. The candidates campaign in CA, TX, NY, and FL because that’s where you win your votes. The opinions of citizens in those states seem to be worth more than the rest of the USA.
Now, this is isn’t to say that a popular vote would make them act any differently. It wouldn’t. But to delude yourself into thinking that the EC is giving smaller states a greater voice is wrong.
So there you go. TA DA. Shazam.
Sincerely,
Ender “wiggidy wack” W24
OK, that’s not bad, but from the perspective this furriner that a fair portion of your points relate to the integrity of the electoral roll and procedures e.g. absentee votes, multiple voting. I would have thought these were still come into play regardless of whether the College existed.
But whilst you are up on your feet, could you flesh out the proposal a bit more?
What are you proposing to replace it with? A 150 million vote, first past the post election or something else?
Would you be looking at a mechanism that encourages or dissuades third party candidates?
Given that the issues influencing how people vote would differ across the country, would you have some regionally based break-up of the tally, or just the total?
Given the time-zones the US covers, do you think it’s desirable to count, display and presumably influence the progressive score whilst western polling booths are still open, or have a black-out with someone from SCOTUS opening a sealed envelope at the end of the counting?
On a side issue would an unscrutinised electronic voting system be “trusted” to count your vote the way it was cast?
Have no barrow either way. Would just be interested to hear your opinions. 
I think there is one main thing being overlooked by Enderw24 which is that this is the United STATES of America, not the People’s Republic of America. It is a Union of states. I guess you are entitled to believe it is time to change that but it is not something superficial, it is something which would radically alter the fuondation of this country. It was a group of states who joined together and founded this country. It was not a group of people.
You can see the same thing in europe happeneing right now. The European Union is a union of countries, not of people. Each country gets a number of votes which means the votes of people in smaller countries have more weight than the votes of people in larger countries. You may think it is unfair but it is the only way to do it. If countries has a weight directly proportional to their population, then there would be exactly one country (Germany) in the EU.
The reasons for states not having votes directly proportional to their population are exactly the same. Say tomorrow California and NY propose population is the only thing that counts. You can bet you have a lot of states seceding in no time. So the reason it is not changed is because it cannot be changed without a few major states imposing it on a lot of smaller states.
And long before that happens you will see the District of Columbia represented in the Congress and I can guarantee that is a long way off (the new license plates “taxation without representation” not withstanding).
Another obvious point is that if votes should be proportional to population, the in the UN we might as well all go home and let China run the place and tell us what to do.
Votes proportional to population are, most of the time, not a good idea.
Well, a few of your points are a tad off topic. I’ll address them, but I don’t want to delve too deeply into this if we’re going to focus on the electoral college.
First, multiple voting wasn’t a reason I gave for why the electoral college is bad. I just listed it as something that people do do.
As it stands right now, they only count absentee votes if it’s close and could affect the outcome of the state. But the thing is that there are lots of positions people are voting on besides president. I believe that whatever system we use should include the counting of absentee ballots BEFORE a candidate is declared the victor. I wouldn’t mind waiting a few days while they tally it all up. After all, we have two and a half months to figure it out.
I’m not advocating anything. I wholeheartedly believe the popular vote is better than the electoral college system. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be open to something better than even that.
Excellent point. I completely forgot about third parties in my reasoning. Call it #8. Third parties are very much discouraged under our current system and the electoral college hinders their formation. Can anyone tell me the number of states a non Demo/Rep presidential candidate has won in the last 15 elections? I don’t think any. Going by those numbers, you’d think they weren’t even in the race! I believe we should have third and fourth and fifth parties and a “winner takes all” electoral process can’t possibly support multiple parties.
I think these are a tad off topic. How the press influences the vote is mostly irrelevent to how the vote is structured. I believe that the public certainly has a right to know how a candidate is doing and the press has a right to report it. I also think that changing this practice will be 100x as hard as changing our voting procedures.
Also, they can break up the vote however they want to. Time zone, state, county, city. Whatever. But under a popular vote, all votes must ultimately count.
Also a bit off topic, but you admitted as much already. I suppose I would trust it. I don’t know why I shouldn’t trust a computer to count my vote, unless I couldn’t read the directions on how to punch a card. But hand reading 100 million ballots would take way too long under any system and opens it up to many more biases than a computer count.
But don’t you see? This is exactly what’s happening under our system of government now! The number of votes you get to elect your president is proportional to the population of your state. The power of your vote is directly linked to your geographical area. That shouldn’t be the way it is. Every citizen is equal and their vote should be too.
Did you know that theoretically, it’s possible for one president to win 80-90% of the popular vote and still lose the election? Talk about an injustice there!
CA, NY, FL, and TX won’t change to a popular system because then they’ll LOSE power, not gain it. I don’t understand the point you’re making, sailor, about secession.
The point you made about the US being a union of states is an interesting one. I’m going to have to think about it a bit.
Not entirely true. Although there is some adjustment of voting weights in favour of smaller member states, it’s still pretty much proportional. The Intergovernmental Conference of 1996 (IGC 1996) was (unsuccessfully) partly held to address concerns over the votes of smaller states outweighing those of larger states. Also, this is true only of the Council, as far as I can recall, not the European Parliament.
Some problems with your arguments:
Not really. The date of inaguration was changed in 1933 from March 4 to January 20, by the Twentieth Amendment. It had originally been set for March 4 both to allow for counting, and to allow for the President-elect to actually get to Washington (travel from, say, Boston to D.C., particularly in winter, could take a long time in 1789.) By 1933, both counting and travel was considerably faster, but a period of transition is still necessary, to line up who the new Prez wants as cabinet members, etc.
In some states, it is a crime for an Elector to vote contrary to the popular vote. Interesting question as to whether these state laws are constitutional, but that is another matter.
Re: absentee ballots being counted last, if at all. Don’t know how this impacts on the electoral college. If absentee ballots aren’t being counted, that’s a serious problem, but the timing of when absentee ballots are counted is irrelevant to the outcome of the election.
Re: Dole was going to win Kansas, so your vote would’ve been wasted. Eliminating the electoral vote won’t solve this problem. If we have a truly national vote, and it is clear that candidate X has a commanding lead, your vote against him would be equally “wasted”.
Overall, would your vote have more impact on the outcome of the election if you are one of, say, 2 million voters in Kansas voting on Kansas’ electoral votes, or one of 100 million voters in the U.S. voting for the whole enchilada? The math says your vote counts under the electoral college system.
Your reasons #6 and #7 are contradictory. #6 (which is a very legitimate point) - The electoral college is bad because it gives unfair weight to small states. #7 - Small states don’t affect the outcome of the election.
My position is as follows: keep the electoral college, but eliminate the two senatorial votes - that is, have the electoral college accurately reflect the population of the states. The benefit of the electoral college is that it requires a candidate to have a broad base of national support. Without the electoral college, a candidate could win with overwhelming support in a few large states and a small minority support everywhere else. If that happens, entire regions of the country would feel disenfranchised.
Sua
When you’re electing a national president, what difference does it make where you live? Why doesn’t one person’s vote in New York count exactly the same as one person’s vote in Nevada?
The electoral college, in effect, distributes power unevenly. Small population states have more power, per person, than large population states.
I just don’t get it. I don’t think states should elect presidents, I think citizens should.
Crusoe, I did not mean to say every European country gets the same number of votes. What I meant is that countries with smaller populations get proportionally more votes. That is my point, that the agreed a formula that gives smaller countries proportionally more weight.
The fact that today some Americans see themselves as Americans first and citizens of their state second is an indication of the success of the union founded 225 years ago. At that time it was much more a union of states and was constituted that way.
You may consider yourself firstly an American and want all votes to have the same weight but this is not easy to change and I can tell you it will not be changed any time soon. States are still entities with interests and power. To shift power from the states with less population to the more populous states you are going to find opposition in one side of that equation. Now, what are you going to do about it? Say goodbye to Rhode Island and don’t let the door hist you in the ass? Well, I would not consider that a great success, to end up with the country fragmented like the former soviet union. To impose it by force? I do not think it is a good idea and I do not think it would work. So, as is often the case, you have something which is not perfect but the alternatives are worse. As long as the country works as it is, better not touch it or you might end up with something worse.
BTW, the situation here is similar to Europe: the votes are not proportional to population but it is not like each country or state gets the same number. Rather they are somewhere in between which is an acceptable compromise to the big and the small. Propose absolute equality between the states (countries) and the big ones say no way, propose absolute proportionality to population and the small ones say no way. In the middle ground you can find a balance which pisses off everyone equally.
>> When you’re electing a national president, what difference does it make where you live? Why doesn’t one person’s vote in New York count exactly the same as one person’s vote in Nevada?
Gosh, I don’t know how to explain this any more clearly. YOU are NOT voting for president. Your state is voting for president and he is the president of the united STATES not of the people.
When the country was constituted it was a union of states and that was the formula they found acceptable for all. With your formula the country would not have been possible and it is thanks to the founders that they found a viable formula.
Now, 225 years later, you want to change it. Fina, that is your right but you are going to run into some stiff opposition.
The UN was founded with certain rules which were acceptable to all countries. How would the USA (and our own dear Wildest Bill) feel if tomorrow the UN changed the rules and each country had votes proportional to their population? Are you willing to go along with that?
Governments have no rights-only responsibilities. It is PEOPLE who have rights.
Why should STATES have rights, when they are only governments-it should be about the people.
This isn’t 1776-it’s 2001.
Methinks somebody is confusing the Articles of Confederation with the current Constitution. You may even wish to read that Constitution sometime. Don’t worry, you won’t have to go past the first three words before it tells you who formed our government.
Reasons 6 and 7 are contradictory because they point to conflicting features of the system which somewhat balance each other:
[ul]
[li]The disproportiante representation for small states due to the senatorial votes.[/li]
[li]The “winner take all” aspect. This makes candidates pay too much attention to large states they think are still contestable. It also makes them write off states sometimes because they don’t have a hope of winning that state.[/li][/ul]
Perhaps these conflicting features are why the EC has only failed to give the election to the candidate who won the largest slice of the popular vote a few times, although it has often elected minority presidents who did not have a majority of the popular vote. It’s still hardly ideal.
As you are bothered by the 2 senatorial votes, I am bothered by the “winner take all” feature. Two states, Nebraska and Maine, DO allow their electoral votes to be split, but they are not large states, and it isn’t a significant factor.
States that are written off feel disenfranchised, as do small ones who don’t control a big enough block to make much difference, even if they are proportionally better represented. If we aren’t going to make more radical changes, I would like to see a move towards proportional vote splitting by the states.
If we did that, a candidate might still try to pick up votes in a state they had no hope of winning because, hey, losing it 18 votes to 12 is that much better than losing it 22 to 8. And with the large states splitting, picking up a 4 electoral vote state might be an important factor.
Proportional splitting would probably also cause people to call for reforms of the senatorial votes, if only because we would have endless arguments about how to award the extra votes in a proportional system.
You might suggest that the electoral college has just become a fancy way of tallying the popular vote at that point. I won’t disagree. But it might be easier to do than getting rid of the thing altogether - the states would still be voting. They would just be doing in a manner which accurately reflected the opinions of their citizens.
>>Gosh, I don’t know how to explain this any more clearly. <<
Gosh, I don’t know how you could possibly sound more condescending.
>>YOU are NOT voting for president. <<
Then THEY should stop telling ME that I AM.
>>Your state is voting for president and he is the president of the united STATES not of the people. <<
Then THEY should stop telling ME that he IS.
>>When the country was constituted it was a union of states and that was the formula they found acceptable for all. With your formula the country would not have been possible and it is thanks to the founders that they found a viable formula. <<
Yup. They liked slavery, too. And they really liked opressing women. With your “formula,” nothing would ever be changed.
>>The UN was founded with certain rules which were acceptable to all countries. How would the USA (and our own dear Wildest Bill) feel if tomorrow the UN changed the rules and each country had votes proportional to their population? Are you willing to go along with that?<<
I can’t see how that’s relevent to presidential elections in the US.
Here’s a better analogy. How would you like it if the legistlature in your state decided that for the next presidential election, they would simply appoint electors? That would fulfill the original plan as well as having a general election does. The State would still be doing the voting.
Minty Green, the present voting system is in the constitution, it is the states who vote for president, not the people. If you would like to change it, the constitution also provides for a way to do it, but I do not think you’ll have much luck. As I say, the people of DC are still waiting for their votes and I can’t see that happening any time soon.
>> Governments have no rights-only responsibilities. It is PEOPLE who have rights.
Guinastasia, I don’t know where to begin. Countries, states, and corporations of many kinds have rights and obligations. Your post is just sheer nonsense. If countries and states don’t have rights how come they prevent Mexicans from coming in? God, I really do not know where to begin with this. Never mind.
Just tell me one thing: Would you be OK with the USA giving up its veto power in the UN and from now on all votes in the UN being proportional to population?
Look, the fact is that when the constitution was signed that was what the representatives of the several states found acceptable. Your system would have not been acceptable to them. If you think the time has come to change it, you can start proposing the change but I cannot guarantee you much luck.
sailor, I didn’t say squat about teh Electoral College. I just pointed out that you were dead wrong when you claimed that it was the states that created this country/government.