# Is there any reason to keep the literal Electoral College? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 8, 2011, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653 "2011-09-08T19:44:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/41 "2011-09-12T16:14:34Z")
> [@penultima\_thule](#): > > Why would this need to happen? > > Plenty of (all?) other democratic countries can count the votes and determine the result of disputed elections for the head of government without resorting to duelling lawsuits and “provisional” HOGs. > > IMHO the only change required to the EC is to appoint the electors proportionally rather than winner take all. Most countries aren’t as prone to take issues to court as the United States is. And direct election of the highest office holder isn’t all that common. The British people, for example, don’t elect their Prime Minister. He’s chosen by the members of the party which has a majority in Parliament (which means David Cameron was elected by a count of 306 votes). ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/42 "2011-09-12T17:42:32Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > …faithless elector … One so seldom has the chance to use the term “mugwump”, and now you’ve gone and wasted it! > **[Mugwumps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mugwump)** > > The Mugwumps were Republican political activists in the United States who were intensely opposed to political corruption. They famously switched parties from the Republican Party by supporting the Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland in the 1884 United States presidential election. They switched because they rejected the long history of corruption associated with the Republican candidate James G. Blaine. Despite never formally organizing, the Mugwumps claimed that their influence was the reas... ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/43 "2011-09-12T19:36:36Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > I don’t understand people who think that politicians will campaign more in smaller states if everything is by population. People in the smaller states currently have more power than the people in the larger states. Making that power imbalance worse means that your state is even less important. ## Saying that no one would campaign in Wyoming under a popular vote misses the obvious fact that no one campaigns in Wyoming now since it’s a safe state. You’ll have more luck in understanding opposing arguments if you stop thinking in terms of states and think about the voters who live there. If you live in Wyoming your electoral votes will go Republican. You have no choice at all in the election. Nor in any presidential election in the foreseeable future. Now if you are a hardcore Republican who never expects to disapprove of the Republican nominee and don’t care that you are carrying along your neighbors and their electoral power with you whether they like it or not then yeah, you are OK with it. Anyone else I would expect to reject such an arrangement. > [@bump](#): > > You’re missing the point; the people have never directly elected the president; you actually are expressing your choice for which way your state’s electors should vote. It’s really a state vote, not a direct popular vote, which WOULD be direct democracy, however you slice that. You don’t elect representatives directly in a direct democracy. There aren’t any representatives. The people themselves make the law. You elect representatives (directly or otherwise) in a representative democracy. That’s what we have. America is a representative democracy and a federal republic. If we moved from the Electoral College to a direct popular vote America would still be a representative democracy and a federal republic. Having undemocratic features does not mean a system can’t be a democracy. Having democractic features does not mean a system can’t be a republic. Bringing up the fundamental definition of our governmental structure is totally beside the point. Nothing is being proposed to change that. > [@](#): > > That’s the issue at hand here; people don’t get that it’s not a direct vote, and go off whining like bitchy children about how they’re disenfranchised, blah, blah, blah, despite getting an equal say in how their state’s electors vote. Not liking it isn’t the same thing as not getting it. You can’t just say, “That’s how things are,” to justify how things are. The disagreement here is over the very worth of the system we have now. It’s mere existance does nothing to show that it can’t be improved. > [@](#): > > If the Electoral College is so unpopular, why is it that something like 48 out of 50 states have all-or-nothing elector voting? The people can change that, but they’ve chosen not to. Because that wouldn’t eliminate the Electoral College? Is this a trick question? > [@](#): > > And I’m not "entitled to your opinion on which issues the federal government should concern itself with and which should be reserved for the states. " That’s in the Constitution, which any half-literate person in this country ought to know. The fact that it’s NOT my opinion or anyone else’s is the great thing about the Constitution, not direct democracy. ## Other people are also entitled to that right. My point was that there is nothing special about your opinion. And you are wrong about the Constitution. It can’t do anything by itself. It has to be interpreted and enforced by people. Based on their opinions of what it means. > [@BlinkingDuck](#): > > The Electoral college is a necessity! Without it, the U.S. will not exist in 100 years. It would fragment. > > People in low density/high land states are already distrustful of ‘the coasts’\* as it is today. Take away essentially all their political power and they will begin to look to go their own way. ## The Heartland states aren’t going anywhere. Secession is difficult: see the Civil War. I find it hard to believe that people would rebel because of the myth that having an equal say in who will be president is the same as ripping out their lungs (politically speaking). People are smarter than that. The latest poll I’ve found [here](http://www.slideshare.net/PennSchoenBerland/aspen-ideas-poll-7-910) shows that 79% of Americans are in favor of abolishing the EC. I don’t imagine those 4 out of 5 of us all live on “the coasts”. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > In an election with 538 people voting, you can be virtually certain that every vote was counted and the outcome was accurate. You think you can design a system for 130,000,000 voters where you can say the same? No but so what? This is a legal question and not a mathematical one. If the law delineates limited circumstances for when and why you can challenge a count then that’s all there is to it, assuming the law is up to snuff constitutionally. If it’s not then we get a ruling and after that everything is settled. ---
**Author:** ![penultima\_thule](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/penultima_thule/32/3833_2.png) [@penultima\_thule](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/penultima_thule)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/44 "2011-09-12T22:53:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Most countries aren’t as prone to take issues to court as the United States is. … I understand that to be true, but it’s a crap reason not to undertake reform. > [@](#): > > And direct election of the highest office holder isn’t all that common. The British people, for example, don’t elect their Prime Minister. He’s chosen by the members of the party which has a majority in Parliament (which means David Cameron was elected by a count of 306 votes). I do have a passing familiarity with parliamentary democracies. 🙂 David Cameron was elected as Leader of the Conservative Party by it’s members with 134,446 votes (67.6%) in a third ballot in Dec 2005. Prior to that he won the right to be a contender in that election by winning the second ballot of the then 198 Conservative MPs. l’ll stand corrected, but I don’t think anybody has actually voted for him to be Prime Minister. If a leadership spill was called, he wouldn’t win 306 votes. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/45 "2011-09-12T23:43:17Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > Saying that no one would campaign in Wyoming under a popular vote misses the obvious fact that no one campaigns in Wyoming now since it’s a safe state. You’ll have more luck in understanding opposing arguments if you stop thinking in terms of states and think about the voters who live there. If you live in Wyoming your electoral votes will go Republican. You have no choice at all in the election. Nor in any presidential election in the foreseeable future. Now if you are a hardcore Republican who never expects to disapprove of the Republican nominee and don’t care that you are carrying along your neighbors and their electoral power with you whether they like it or not then yeah, you are OK with it. Anyone else I would expect to reject such an arrangement. Would you likewise say that Republicans who live in Charlie Rangel’s district have effectively no vote for anyone in Congress? If so, I would disagree. Just because you live in a state where you are in the minority party, you haven’t been disenfranchised. You just haven’t convinced enough of your neighbors to vote the way you would like them to. That is not a breakdown of the system when 70 percent of your neighbors don’t agree with you. It just means you lost. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/46 "2011-09-13T01:19:23Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Would you likewise say that Republicans who live in Charlie Rangel’s district have effectively no vote for anyone in Congress? > > If so, I would disagree. Just because you live in a state where you are in the minority party, you haven’t been disenfranchised. You just haven’t convinced enough of your neighbors to vote the way you would like them to. Your explanation doesn’t fit the example. Rangel’s district is safe for Democrats not because there are more Democrats in New York State than Republicans but because it was drawn that way. Republicans living there don’t have a fair chance to convince their neighbors since the deck is deliberately stacked against them. But lets ignore New York and return to Wyoming. In the case of that congressional district I would accept your reasoning as applied to Democrats living there. They are not disenfranchised congressionally. They face an uphill battle, to be sure, but not deliberately so. When they fail to combine with enough other voters to carry a congressional election they have no cause to complain. Votes for president are different. (Or could be, at least.) They don’t just come from Wyoming. We could have a national system where Wyomingites could combine with likeminded Americans elsewhere to elect their preferred candidate even if that candidate is unpopular overall in Wyoming. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/47 "2011-09-13T14:50:16Z")
> [@2sense](#): > > The Heartland states aren’t going anywhere. Secession is difficult: see the Civil War. I find it hard to believe that people would rebel because of the myth that having an equal say in who will be president is the same as ripping out their lungs (politically speaking). People are smarter than that. The latest poll I’ve found [here](http://www.slideshare.net/PennSchoenBerland/aspen-ideas-poll-7-910) shows that 79% of Americans are in favor of abolishing the EC. I don’t imagine those 4 out of 5 of us all live on “the coasts”. Honestly, most people don’t understand crap. Abolish the EC and those same people will eventually start grumbling about lack of political power and being governed from far away and in the far future (100+ years) they will likely start looking to go there own way. I didn’t say secession but essentially the United States in its present form wouldn’t exist as the heartland will either go their own way or become occupied territory. Unlike the South after the civil war this won’t go away because the South recovered some of their political power within 100 years. This wouldn’t happen to the heartland if the EC is gone. Also, unless things have changed, in the 80’s ND would have been the 3rd strongest military power in the world if they were on their own…they had tons and tons and tons of nukes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/48 "2011-09-13T18:02:57Z")
Hmm . . . does anyone know if the electors can vote for write-in candidates? It would be easier for me to bribe, blackmail, and brainwash a few hundred people than a few million. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/49 "2011-09-13T18:30:41Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Hmm . . . does anyone know if the electors can vote for write-in candidates? It would be easier for me to bribe, blackmail, and brainwash a few hundred people than a few million. Yes… the EC voters do get to write in names. This was done in 2004, where one elector voted for John Edwards for President and Vice-President, I believe. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/50 "2011-09-14T06:48:21Z")
It was in Minnesota that an elector voted for Edwards for both POTUS and VPOTUS. Afterwards Minnesota changed their laws to prevent Electors from voting for candidates other than those they are pledged to. Other states have these types of laws as well but they may well be unconstitutional. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/51 "2011-09-14T06:53:29Z")
> [@Gedd](#): > > Hmm . . . does anyone know if the electors can vote for write-in candidates? It might depend on the state. [New York’s ballots](http://iarchives.nysed.gov/Gallery/galleryDetail.jsp?id=470) look pre-printed, but [Minnesota’s](http://discussions.mnhs.org/collections/2009/01/minnesota-electoral-college-assembly-records-transferred-to-the-minnesota-state-archives/) have a blank space. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/52 "2011-09-14T07:00:28Z")
I think the Electoral College has got to go and the POTUS be elected directly by the population. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653/53 "2011-09-14T14:15:09Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > And direct election of the highest office holder isn’t all that common. The British people, for example, don’t elect their Prime Minister. Yes, it’s true–the United States shares this feature with district-based Parliamentary systems: a party with fewer popular votes can defeat a party with more votes and gain control of the executive branch. But, the Parliamentary countries do it for a reason: to make the executive answerable to the legislature. The merits of parliamentary systems versus separation of powers have been debated in many threads, and need not be rehashed here. For our purposes, the key point is that there _are_ at least some merits–primarily, that parliamentary systems avoid deadlocked government which frequently paralyzes the United States. For a nation which chooses to adopt a district-based parliamentary system, the fact that a party with fewer votes can defeat a party with more votes is an unfortunate but necessary concommitant. It’s undesirable in its own right, but necessary to preserve the greater advantage of having the executive answerable to the legislature. In the United States, we don’t have the advantage–the President is frequently at odds with Congress–but we retain the disadvantage, for no good reason. We elect the executive independently, but superimpose a ridiculous vote-counting mechanism (that’s all today’s EC is) which _still_ allows a party with fewer votes to defeat a party with more votes. If we’re going to elect the President independently, we should _elect_ him, as we elect every other office–by letting the person with the most votes win. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-there-any-reason-to-keep-the-literal-electoral-college/595653.md?page=2)