Freedom2 Explains the Advantages of the Electoral Collage

Great Debates
21

2sense fails to accept that the country’s president should be picked by a system that is based in the federal nature of our government. The proffered alternative would have the people of the United States of America bypassing the federal system and directly electing by a plurality (or with runoff votes a majority) of votes nationwide the head of the executive branch of the country.

To wich I offer one simple response: if you don’t want to live in a federal republic, relocate to some country that doesn’t govern itself that way.

This isn’t a flip answer along the lines of: if you don’t like it, move. This is an attempt to point out that attacking the election of the President through electors selected by the states is an attack on federalism itself. It presupposes that the President is the representative of the people as a whole, not the head of a government for a federal republic. Taking that argument to its logical conclusion, let’s revamp Congress to allow proportional representation in the House on a nationwide basis, rather than on a winner-take-all district basis, and let’s totally eliminate the Senate, an anachronistic institution that is based in the concept that the votes of a few hundred thousand people in Wyoming are just as valuable as the votes of fifteen million people in California.

We select electors from each state NOT because it is ‘better’ than selecting the president by direct vote, but because it is part of a system of government that, despite vigorous attempts to undermine it over the last 65 plus years, still depends on the concept that individual states combine to make our nation. If you don’t like that concept, you really need to be living somewhere where that isn’t the basic governmental structure. :slight_smile:

22

Well, I admit my post was not the miracle of clarity.

The electoral college makes up for territory not voting because, lets face it, what the federal government does can effect territtory, and the few people who live in it could in no way stand up to a California. Thus, small population states have more votes than would otherwise seem warranted. It is not necessarily to give those people a stronger voice, but to let the area itself speak which can fall under federal regulation just as easy as a person.

In a majority vote, you can still win states. The You lobby for the same things as you would in an electoral college system. The only thing that would change is a candidate could ignore much of America and still get his votes. The calif. example was brought up, where Bush won quite a few votes but not a majority, and this was used to show that the electoral college is unfair because all the people who voted for Bush ended up voting for Gore. No, they still voted for Bush. It makes more sense for the Prez to win states than votes, because federal government is the huge regulator, and regulates states! Then states regulate their poulous…this is the idea behind not having a centrist government. Power is ubiquitous, but spread out. Popular vote can only serve to localize power.

The president is not popularly elected because Congress already is, and so what if there are only two senators for each state? In any case, congress is elected by popular vote. If the president were, as well, to be elected by the popular vote we would find the serbia thing mentioned earlier. No candidate will ever please everybody/ so a majority vote will cause less diversity in campaigning. The link I posted earlier goes into some small detail behind that idea.

So, like a balance of power, we elect the president and congress differently, and they in turn appoint the supreme court. There we have our three branches of government, all derived differently to prevent, hopefully, a strong central government which the Founding Fathers were rather against.

I hope I have been more clear.

23

Well, that may have been the original concept, but post-Civil War development of the United States has not operated on that concept. Indeed, in the language itself, post-Civil War the United States stopped being plural to become a singular. Indicative of a shift.

Now, iin the past shall we say ten years there has been a movement to revive “state’s rights” – frankly I think that it’s a wrong-headed reaction by conservatives to social and political changes in the past decades. (For all the whinging about lost rights and the like, I would rather note that the expansion of federal oversight has seen an increase in the protection of individual rights – black folks can vote now after all. Etc.)

Certainly, from an economic perspective a tight federal government is much more efficient, and frankly given the ever-increasing mobility of American society, states as entities of identity are likely to make even less sense than they have in the past century.

But, if those supporting states rights really want to pursue the revival of a fairly inefficient and to an extant ahistorical concept of America, and you can succeed… Well go right ahead. I doubt the results will be pleasing in the long run.

24

Oh . . .my . . .god.

I agree with Freedom2.

“Snowball survives in Hell, thrives. Story, B-3.”
Having lived in the US West for most of my life, I cannot support any system which would marginalize Western voters any more than we already are. The EC guarantees Western states are heard.

25

**Jeff_42 **:

Regarding the Yugoslavian scenario, is it so farfetched to assume that at least 1/2 of one percent of Serbians would think that dividing Croatia and Bosnia up amongst the Serbs would be wrong? That 1.5% of the Serbs ( who make up 50.1% of the total Yugoslavians ) plus all of the Croatians and Bosnians ( you aren’t thinking they would vote for their own enforced nomadism or serfdom, are you? ) would be enough to stop the Serbian domination. I’m just trying to explain my example, here.

The bigger point is that someone has to elect the president. If you ascribe evil motives to those who do then certainly tyranny will exist. But to the same extent that the tyranny of the majority can exist in a popular vote, a tyranny of a minority can exist under the Electoral Collage. The EC makes tyranny easier because it takes fewer people to accede to it. There is no need to appeal to the majority if only a minority is needed.

As a final note I protest the use of “mob rule”. A popular vote is in no way similar to groups of people carrying signs and torches storming DC and making policy. The EC debate is about how to choose our representatives. I find the use of the term in this debate to be prejudicial.

26

I agree that a Confederacy would not be as fine a system as we have now, but the idea the we avoid a strong central government for internal affairs is always relevant. As we see under any devised voting system, a government can be elected even if it pissed of a lot of voters (even the majority!). To give them MORE power is not the best idea. It is even true that a strong central covernment can get a lot done better, but it can also go haywire pretty quickly too (as history has told the tale for thousands of years).

I am not a huge State’s Rights supporter, but an anti-Centrist Government guy. Perhaps the difference is negligible if the effect is the same…

27

Protest noted and denied.:slight_smile:

28

Unfortunately I am pressed for time at the moment but I would like to respond to the “Federalist” argument. I should get around to some of the others later tonite.

I agree with Collunsbury that the situation has changed since the Civil War but I don’t wish to argue that here. I feel that is another debate. I am prepared to attack the EC on the basis that it is a bad idea but I will refrain from commenting ( hopefully ) on the argument that it is the way it should be done because that’s the way things are.

Some asides:
Freedom2:
I thought your summary of the position of the FF to be concise and accurate. I disagree with the assumptions of the Framers but I can’t argue with them because they are dead. If you wish to take up those assumptions then I will be happy to debate with you.
I will get back to the rest of your post.

Joe_Cool:
My problem with your position is that I disagree with it. It isn’t confusing nor do I feel it important to this debate. Also, please see my protest in my last post concerning the use of prejudicial semantics. Demonizing a majority of Americans as a “mob” is simply a dirty rhetorical trick.

DSYoungEsq:
Since you framed it so nicely I won’t answer your post with my usual “America, Love It or Leave It” sarcasm. Personally, I prefer “America, Love it or Change it”.
[innocent voice] Wasn’t that what the American Revolution was all about? [/innocent voice]

Also, you might want to refrain from any further “revamped Congress” proprosals.
You are making me all hot and bothered. Yum. :wink:

29

Joe Cool
I’m so glad I snuck my post in about State’s rights just before yours:)

Andros

If I have posted an unreasonably reasonable post then please forgive me, I will strive to re-acheive my hyberbolic and extremist view on politics:)

This only goes to show how valuable the electoral college and a weak federal gov’t are. Imagine people like me trying to live in a country with an overly strong federal gov’t ruled by President Andros (or God forbid, Chairman Stoidela:)), now reverse the scenario and put me in charge.
Man…if you think things are bad now, we would have civil wars breaking out every 20 years if we kept swinging to the extremes. I hate to admit it, but I think this country has done a fairly good job of balancing out the tug-of-war between the Right and Left to acheive a workable middle ground. I may think things are currently to far to the left right now, but I fear a super powerful federal gov’t from EITHER side.

30

Actually, I wouldn’t even say that. Percentage-wise, his lead was exceedingly small.

Additionally, we must remember that this election was conducted in accordance with the rules of an electoral college. As a result, there were doubtlessly voters in, say, Texas and Utah who didn’t bother voting, knowing that their states were shoo-ins for Bush. (Similarly, there were surely voters in NY and California who didn’t bother casting their votes for Gore.) In order to fairly evaluate who the “popular” winner would be, we should have an election based on a popular vote.

31

Case in point: Me. I was born in Texas and lived there till I was 19 and joined the Navy. In the 24 years since, I have lived in Texas, California and Florida. I have spent an entire summer roaming the country. Consequently, I no longer think of myself as a Texan, but as an American.

And I find it absurd that my vote would’ve counted more in Florida than it did on California. I voted for Nader in California and it did not affect Gore’s chances of winning California’s electoral votes even a tiny bit. Now, had I voted for Nader in Florida…

As a slogan, I prefer America, Change It or Lose It. That was the answer to the “love it or leave it” crowd in the 60s.

32

Perhaps I should say this another way.
Texas is not Alaska. Rhode Island is not Maryland. This is not just because the people who live there act a certain way, this is because as a geographically defined area, it has concerns other states do not. You will not be able to convince me that Hawaii’s concerns are the same as North Dakota’s, even if they had exactly the same population.

What I’m saying here is states have the votes for president because congress already has the votes of the people. I do not know if this was the original intent, but the OP wasn’t about that (it also wasn’t about me explaining my views, but tough :smiley: ).

Much like income tax differs from sales tax differs from property tax–in how they are employed and who pays how much–voting different branches of government in differently makes perfect sense. Democracy will always be a failure because you can’t please everybody, but you can try to make everything balance out.

Congress can beat the hell out of a president. The president can do things congress cannot. To have them both be popularly elected is to defeat the point of having a system of checks and balances.

It is true that there may sometimes be a same party president/congress, and in that case the nation really did pull together.

Fin

33

I asked this in another thread, but by the time I asked the discussion was over so no one answered.

I apologize for asking it again, but I am genuinely curious about this issue.

In constitutional discussions (e.g. 2nd amendment discussions) I hear many references to “the original intent”. Applying that concept to this dicussion, let me ask this:

Didn’t the proponents of the electoral college think that the electors should vote for presidential candidates independently of the voter’s preferences or party affiliations? Or did they think that the electors from the E.C. should be bound to be a passive conduit for the popular vote?

I would assume that the original intent was for the electors to vote freely for whomever candidate they preferred, and that laws enacted to force them to vote for a particular candidate violate the purpose of the EC.

If I’m correct, should the electoral college still work this way, i.e. the electors should not be bound by the popular vote?

34

Cannidates do not campaign to win states, they campaign to win groups. A presidential cannidate can’t make a promise to voters in California and a contradictory promise to voters in Texas (Well he could, but the press would eat him alive.). A cannidate is trying to win the support of groups. Bush was clearly going for the Christian right. Gore clearly wanted the votes of environmental groups. Regardless of what state they were in, their positions were the same. Texans may have different concerns than Hawaiians, but you can’t win the votes of Texans just by adressing that specific concern.

 If the election was based purely on a popular vote, the cannidates approach would be the same. Bush would still play to the pro-life voters. Gore would still play to the pro-choice. The minority would not be ignored. Remember the rainbow coalition? Enough small groups can make a difference.

   I am a registered Democrat. I used to live in a Republican dominated county. Each and every election, regardless of what office, I knew my vote did not count. For the entire time I lived there, the Republicans always won that district. I live in Philadelphia now. Here the Democrats dominate. Everyone knew that Gore would win Philadelphia. The Republican voters in Philly could have had the same impact on the election by staying home.

  My parents also live in Philly. But they have a summer condo in Florida. They are registered in Pennsyvania. As Democrats, their votes only added to the landslide here. Had they been registered in Florida, their votes could have made all the difference.
35

Before any one asks, I have read the article on the mathematical theorem that explains the electoral college.
I disagree with several of its assumptions.

1 Was the math based on total US population or registered voters? The number of citizens eliglible to vote?

2 As I and several other posters have said, where you live may ensure that your vote does not matter. Do all the math you want to prove that the EC gives more power to Republican voters in Philadelphia. Democrats have dominated Philly since before I was born. A republican vote here is meaningless and powerless.

3 Math is useful for many things. If I want to predict chemical reactions, or the movement and velocity of objects math is the only way to go. However, as a Psych major, I can tell you math is useless in predicting the behavior of humans. How many citizens eligible will register to vote? How many registered will actually vote? Will the Democrats in a Democrat dominated district get over confident and not vote allowing Republicans to win the district? How mant voters will accidentally vote for the wrong Presidential cannidate or no cannidate at all? Last election, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported a number of strange write in votes. These included a vote for Mickey Mouse.

Further if districting of elections is such marvellous thing, why stop at Presidential elections? Why aren’t senator, Mayors etc elected by an electoral college?

Nader received no electoral votes. What percentage of the popular vote did he receive? Many Democrats feared that Nader would take votes from Gore and cost key states. In a popular vote, there would be no need for concern.

36

The last poster, I am afraid, has no understanding of the basic concepts involved in the election of the President.

This, and other comments regarding the impact of the presence of Republicans in Philadelphia ignores the fact that neither Mr. Bush nor Mr. Gore was trying to win Philadelphia, they were trying to win Pennsylvania. In THAT election, trust me, it was vital to the hopes of Mr. Bush that as many Republicans in Philadelphia voted as possible. Nor can it credibly be asserted that Pennsylvania would never go Republican, as anyone who remembers the Reagan years knows.

I suggest that the person making this statement apply him/herself to the study of human behaviour more thoroughly. While it is true that any given individual’s behaviour cannot be determined with precision through mathmatical analysis, statistical analysis of groups of people is often quite accurate in predicting group behaviour. However, it quite escapes me how the ability of math to predict human behaviour has anything to do with whether it is better to elect a President with the current method, or through a national popular vote.

Actually, Mr. Bush spent much of the time following the Republican convention trying as hard as possible NOT to equate himself with the position of the orthodox religious ‘right’. Most political experts agree that the method for winning a general election is to head to the middle as fast as possible, and assume the wing will vote for you anyway. Attempts to pander to the wing will result in such slaughters as we witnessed in 1964 and 1972.

I could continue to pick this silliness apart, but I won’t; it is sufficient to the purpose to note that, for anyone who has THIS level of understanding, the method for selecting the President will always seem a meaningless muddle. Who cares? I’m not intending to be mean. What I mean is that the general mass of people will often think that direct elections make more sense, thinking their vote matters more that way. The intricacies of federalism versus popular democracy will be lost in the process.

Getting on to meatier analysis, let’s examine the propositions proffered by *Arnold Winkelried. In his post, Arnold proposes that electors should not be ‘bound’ to vote for given candidates, this being the original intent of the ‘College’. ‘Original intent’ arguments are nonsense. First of all, we don’t bind ourselves to the ‘original intent’ in any other part of the Constitution (despite the best efforts of such limelights as Justice Scalia :wink: ), so why should we here? But, if we are examining this from the standpoint of: should we choose electors who have a stated preference or not, let’s think about the options:

  1. Pass a law preventing electors from stating a preference as to who they wish to elect. Oops, hello First Amendment… so nice to see you…

  2. Find unconstitutional laws that prohibit electors from exercising independence. First of all, not all states have such laws, yet 99% of electors remain ‘faithful’, secondly, the Constitution establishes that the state legislatures get to decide who the electors will be, and presumably it is just as ‘constitutional’ for them to decide that pledged electors work as well as unpledged electors.
    When we look at the evolution of the process, we can see why there was evolution in the method of choosing. To the extent that the people at the Convention tried to avoid the ‘evils’ of ‘faction’, they failed horribly. By the 1796 election, faction was busting out all over. It is interesting to note that, in that election, at least ONE elector voted for BOTH Adams and Jefferson, which action would be consistent with the ‘intent’ of the ‘framers’. But the addition of the 12th Amendment was an explicit acknowledgement of the arrival of factional elections. Add in the ferment of Jacksonian democracy and its demand that people have a say in the decisions of government (given that the Constitution only managed to last about 30 years before such democratic reforms started totally transforming the basic concepts of how we choose our ‘older, wiser heads’ to rule us, we shouldn’t really think of the system thought up by the original writers of the Constitution as so sacrosanct; after all, it took them over 10 years to decide that the Articles of Confederation were in need of some overhaul) and you have the fiasco of 1824, which was solved with nominating conventions. The current process has been in place pretty much since 1832, and we only have one election that didn’t work as planned, the 1876 election. Pretty good stats, considering.

To argue that pledged electors are a bad thing, one has to either argue that: the ‘Electoral College’ is a bad thing, since it has resulted in pledged electors as a result of faction in our politics, or ‘faction’ is a bad thing, especially the strongly rooted two-party system perpetuated at the Presidential level by the ‘winner-take-all’ method of selecting electors. As to the former, well, I still think federalism is a good thing, and I shudder to think of what happens when the candidates can simply sit in NY or LA and beam commercials to metropolitan areas in order to ‘campaign’. As for faction, I look at places where multiple factions have a say in government (Israel comes to mind right now for obvious reasons) and I shudder even more.

To paraphrase that famous statement: What we have is pretty ugly until you compare it to everything else.

37

The actual electors. Do we really need a physical representation of these votes? Can’t we just say “you won Ohio, so you get 23 votes” and rid ourselves of possible suspense and scandal? I see no point in having actual electors for the EC…it just doesn’t make sense.

38

Nah, no worries there. President andros would be as he is now: a good, self-serving fence-sitter. He’d be much more interested in getting blown in the Oval Office than pissing off the right or the left.

39

Hey, don’t shoot the messenger! I was just playing devil’s advocate here. It was partly a historical question (did the people who thought up the EC imagined it as a set of super-educated voters who would choose a president?) and if so, partly an attempt to show why (IMHO) original intent arguments are nonsense, as you so well put it.

However, DSYoungESQ, I will disagree with this portion of your post:

I am sure I could find a country with a two-party system that has had many political crises and coups d’état. How about looking at the example of Switzerland, which has functioned for many years with three strong parties in congress and several smaller ones. (FYI - the swiss constitution, dating from 1848, is copied on the american constitution with one of the main differences being that the executive federal power is held by a cabinet of seven people with those seven people chosen by the federal congress. There is an informal agreement that the seven people will represent a balance amongst the different political parties and language groups in Switzerland). FWIW I think Switzerland has also resolved this thorny issue (electing the ministers in charge of the executive branch of the federal government) in a different way with much success.

40

This has to be the best thing I’ve heard all day :smiley:

As far as the article goes about the math of elections, was that the link I posted about Kenneth Arrow’s theorem? The intent was to show that a majority opinion is very unlikely to form in any election with more than two choices, sort of a pot-shot at any form of voting.