Did H. Clinton say she was going to propose a constitutional amendment to disband the Electoral College? If so, did she make any attempt to do this?
Don’t know if she actually proposed it but it would make sense from her stand point. Eliminating the electoral college would turn presidential elections into popular votes. Since the most populated areas are California and the Northeastern seaboard, they would determine every election. And since they consistently vote Democrat, it would make it much easier for her to win a race for president.
You know, I seem to remember something along those lines as well. But, whatever Hillary may be, she ain’t supid. And anyone who wastes her time trying to eliminate the EC is STUPID! STUPID! STUPID! It will not happen. She may have opined that it should be eliminated, but I don’t think she actually said she’d try to do it.
As of today, Clinton has proposed no such legislation, according to Thomas.
However, she has proposed an equal right rights amendment, Senate Joint Resolution 11
The current system ensures that ALL of California’s votes are counted as Democrat. Woudln’t a popular vote at least give millions of Republicans a voice? In a close election, that could make a difference.
I (a lefty) am in favor of popularly electing the president not for partisan reasons but because I think it’s the democratic (small “d”) thing to do. But as John Mace said, it’s never going to happen. You’d have to convince citizens and representatives of smaller states that (a) it’s the right thing to do and (b) it’s worth acting against their perceived self-interest.
At the risk of venturing into GD territory, wouldn’t eliminating the EC actually be desirable? I mean, shouldn’t the presidency be decided by the majority vote of the actual citizens of the country?
It almost seems like you’re mixing the concepts of the EC with popular vote. California and the Northeast wouldn’t determine the election, because their votes would not be grouped by state. All the people in those areas who voted Republican would have their votes counted toward their preferred candidate.
It seems to me that the EC is an outdated system. Perhaps I’m missing out on some subtlety, but consider the following situation: In 49 states, 49% of the populations vote Republican. In the last state, 100% of the people vote Republican. In that situation, the Democratic candidate would win the election even though > 50% of the public wanted the other candidate to win.
It just seems to me that grouping votes by geographic region is an antiquated system that has the potential to be unfair.
To clarify on my last post (in an attempt to un-GD it), is there some reason that the EC is more desirable than a straight count of the popular vote?
Hmmm. Well it has been years since I studied this. But when it was taught to me it made sense and I will try to convey it in a way that will make sense too (hopefully someone will help me out…)
A majority vote isn’t necessarily the best way to determin the choice. Compare it to the world series and number of runs. In (let us say) 5 games you might find that 10 runs were scored by the Yanks and 9 by the the Mets. You might be tempted to say that the Yanks were the best team. But if we look at individual games we might see that the Yanks had 9 runs in 1 game, and 1 run in another and no runs in the rest. But the Mets had 2, 2, 2, 2 and 1. So you would see that the Mets lost the first game and won the rest. Now who is the better team?
If we look at majority vote we might see that Bill won in California and Texas and (pick others) and had the majority. But lost the majority of the states.
Did I convey that well?
Anyway, I can see the argument for majority vote, but I can see also a good argument for the Electoral college.
Who would care about Podunk and Peoria, when there’s New York and L.A.? That’s the gist of the EC. It’s expensive to visit South Dakota and Alaska, but because of the EC, those places do get visited, and they do have a chance to air their concerns in a platform which the proposed candidates can reply. Well, at least they used to respond to questions. Now it’s all about sound bites. But they don’t feel ignored (Iowa was once ignored, until they changed their primary date)
I remember right after the horror of the 2000 Florida election, Senator-Elect Hillary said she wanted to propose legislation for an amendment to abolish the EC. Since then I’ve been waiting to see something on it from her.
Getting rid of the EC wouldn’t work because even if we could decide as individuals, the decisions of the government affect each state as a whole
Well, if we got rid of the EC, we would still have to deal with inaccurate votes. As much as we love to think that we have the technological capabilities for perfect vote counting, we don’t. Bush lost the popular vote on a smaller margin than he won the extremely close Florida votes. Just imagine the expense, controversey, and difficulty of the 2000 election expanded from a few counties in Florida to the enitre nation.
Ouch.
Aren’t we mixing up two concepts here?
Concept 1) The Electoral College. You don’t really vote for a specific person, you vote for a collection of Electors who then vote for the President.
Concept 2) The geographic division of voting. Your state has a number of “votes” equal to (I believe) the number of representatives you have in both houses of Congress. Some states all “all or nothing” states (all their votes go to whichever group of Electors got the most popular votes) and some split up their votes.
It’s possible to do away with the EC without doing away with the geographic division of voting.
Or am I totally mis-remembering High School Government class?
First of all, I really don’t think the baseball analogy fits. I can understand what you meant, but it just doesn’t seem quite the same. The election is like one game, not the World Series.
But if there were no electoral college, then Bill would be unable to carry the influence of the entire state of, say, California, just be cause he had a majority.
My problem is that, under the current system, if you live in a state that tends to vote the opposite of you, then you vote for president doesn’t count. At all. I mean, you might as well not even vote, because it’s pointless.
That’s not the way I think the system should work. I think that everyone’s vote should count. Now, I can understand that smaller states might not be campaigned as much, and the issues might not reflect what is important to those states, and I really don’t see what the answer should be. With the EC, populous states get screwed. With popular vote, sparsely populated states get screwed. Maybe neither system is actually “better”, but it just irks me that my vote is completely worthless come election time.
Actually, they don’t get visited. When was the last time a presidential or vice-presidential candidate made a campaign stop in Alaska? Nixon did in 1960, but only because he made a foolish promise to visit all 50 states during the campaign. I doubt if any candidate has since.
As for Iowa, yes it gets a lot of attention before its primary, but after that it becomes flyover country.
And the reason for that is that those states are generally Republican strongholds. The Dems concede that and concentrate on states that are up for grabs. The Republicans take them for granted and concentrate on the same states the Dems do.
It seems to me that if we went with a direct election, the candidates would tend to spread their campaigning out more, instead of concentrating on the same half dozen midwestern and central Atlantic states. For the same reason it would be better to alternate which states get the first primaries and caucuses so that the candidates don’t always concentrate on Iowa and New Hampshire.
Why is everyone debating the Electoral College? Not to be a jerk, but this is beyond the scope of my OP and probably should be in Great Debates.
That’s the best darn question I’ve heard all day, Major.
Hillary Calls For End To Electoral College
This article is from November 2000, so there’s no word on any action she might have taken.
Here is an article that talks about Hillary’s willingnest to co-sponsor a reform of the electoral college. It also explains why the electoral college is useful using much the same analogy as I did above