The EC, or something like it, needs to stay in effect because the President is supposed to lead the Executive Branch of the United States of America.
The whole concept of the federal government was a loosely crafted federation of mostly independent states, starting way back from the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were just a bit too loose, so that government was scrapped to come up with the one we use today, which involves each state having an input into the federal government by having the citizens of each state elect senators and representatives, and by having the Presidency determined by state and not by ‘the people.’
Had this country been set out to have one overriding strong central federal government in which the President was a leader of people and not of states, I’d be all in favor of scrapping the EC, but that’s not how it was designed. It seems to be for good reason too, else the concerns of those low population states would be easily overlooked since a person could win the Presidency by accumulating the vote in a handful of very large cities.
For example, Los Angeles has a population higher than Wyoming. In a pure popular vote, the entire state of Wyoming could be ignored by a candidate who shows up in L.A., caters to the needs of those who live in a big city like L.A. and forgets all about people with rural agricultural needs in Wyoming. If that’s the case, then that candidate is not interested a federal government consisting of fairly independent states, and it runs contrary to the Constitutional basis of this country.
I’m in favor of keeing the EC, but I don’t follow the logic of those concerned about campaigning in sparsely populated areas. Not in the 21st century.
What % of the electorate actually ever sees a candidate? The vast majority of people get all their info from newspapers, TV or talking to other people. Hell, I’d prefer those candidates stay out of my backyard. All they do is cause extra traffic, anyway.
OK, so count up the votes by states and weigh them accordingly. For instance, if X registered U.S. voters live in the state of Corruption, and 10X votes are counted, and it is impossible to separate fraudulent from authentic votes, divide the totals by 10. It’s not a perfect solution, but it would seem to be more effective than the current system (Electoral College, winner-take-all) at limiting the effect of fraud.
Yes, yes, I know how it worked in the past. You’re talking about the campaign patterns of candidates still using the EC. Think about the situation after elimination of the EC. Do both candidates, perhaps not immediately, but certainly over time, begin to shape platforms to cater to a few key states? I believe it likely. The problem then becomes, not that the other states miss out on ‘face time’ with the candidates, but that any competing interests they might have fall by the way side. Think back to the electoral maps of 2000. Blue states tended to be more densely populated, urban populations, industrial areas. Red states tended to be rural, agricultural based areas. Differing political and economic needs. Remember the phrase during the 2000 campaign regarding the red states? They were derided as the flyover states.
Yes, they do. And this would only increase under a strictly popular vote scenario. This is one reason I favor proportional electoral votes. It would put states back into play.
Since the 2000 election, it seems that the main reason EC change is suggested is due to the whine that Al Gore received 500,000 more votes. Duh. We know that. My point for those people is that Clinton, by comparison, did not; if eliminating the EC might seem the best course of action, perhaps a clear look at recent history might be instructive.
Duckster, I think you’ve narrowed it down quite well. Polycarp, regarding section 3: why would you add the Senate into the voting process? Personally, I’d prefer to leave that exclusively to the House.
Personally, my problem with getting rid of the Electoral College is that you have essentially reduced the dynamics of the voting machine to a majority rule function. The problem with this stems from a quote I heard somewhere that I cannot put my finger on, “A person is smart, people are stupid.”
This quote holds a tremendous amount of weight, as once you place this government in a position of majority rule (a true democracy) you have essentially turned the absolute power of this government into the hands of the media. Imagine that most people in this country get their information from the television media and are voting based on what they hear. An incident like Columbine would not prevail to level headed thinkers but would spawn emergency polls as to whether we need our second amendment rights. The media has a substantial influence on the sheep in this country (the majority) and their collective manipulation of the facts can do us a great deal of harm. Whether it was intended or not, It seems, to me at least, that the Electoral College IS doing its job for the most part.
EXCEPT:
My major problem with the machinations of this machine is that it allows new immigrants (who are not allowed to vote) the ability to have a say in who runs this country (albeit indirectly). Immigrants who come to this country legally become citizens, yet they are not allowed to vote for a set period of time (7 years?). However, because the number of electoral votes given to a state is based on population of a particular state (check an electoral map alongside a census map and the fundamental rules of the college for confirmation), and newly legalized immigrants are included in the census even though they are not eligible to vote, it seems they do have an impact on who our president is.
Take a look at an Electoral College map. Look at the majority of heavy hitters in this country as far as how many votes are given to a particular state. Take a look at New York, Georgia, Florida, Texas, California, New Jersey…They are the states with the largest number of electoral votes. What do they all have in common? They are all immigrant states.
All I can say is, for a “total vote across the country” system- imagine Florida of election 2000. Imagine what happened in Florida occuring in all 50 states at once because the total difference between the candidate’s votes is less than 10,000, and so any hanging chads in any states might matter.
Until we find some perfect, can’t-be-miscounted system for tallying votes, I see no reason not to have at least some breakdown by districts so that we can dispense with recounts in the 90% of the disctricts where it isn’t even close.