I know that nox has already explained his views of the college before in a previous post, but I want to hear the opinions of other totse members.

In my opinion, the electoral college is outdated and does not allow a true poular soverginty(sp?).

The electoral college might have worked back in the times before rapid communication, but now in the information age it just retracts from the election process.

I do not see the fairness of having some one win the poular vote, but not winning the presidancy because they did not win "key" states. Example: 2000 election where Gore lost becaus he "lost" Flordia, yet he had the popular vote.

This College just allows a selected few to have a greater influence on the government and keeps the power in the hands of the ame people year after year.

Does this system seem flawed to anyone else?

Personally, I think the electoral college was a stupid idea back when it started, but I hated gore, so it is all good.

Let us take Gore out of the equation and put in Ross Perot or even Lydon LaRouche. Now what do you think of the protection afforded the small states? Being from Connecticut, I am surprized at your feeling. You're not letting your politics get in the way of your judgement are you?

Nox

Like I said, I hate the electoral college, it is one of a hundred reasons why normal people are repulsed by politics.

However, the one thing good it did was keep gore the hell away from the oval office.

Politics are most effective when they are decided locally. The government is unable to tell what a school needs for success or what roads should be repaired. The National Government as a whole is Macromanagement, so is the state government. It is only in the areas of County and city governance do we enter the areas of micromanagement where good decisions can be made. Just because a majority of the population at most lives in 10 states(this is an example so use whatever numbers you want) does not mean that they are suited to determine the fate of the remaining 40. If there was only a popular vote, only the populous states would be campaigned in and the smaller states would be "pimped." The electoral college is there to provide a balance between the interests of the large states and the interests of the small states.

I thought the electoral college made the votes of smaller states even more worthless because the state votes as one bloc, so if you concentrate your campaigns on states like Cali, New York and Texas you can forget about most of the smaller states. A candidate could be resoundingly popular in most of the small states but still be beaten by someone who was a narrow victor in the large.

If their was a national vote in Presidential elections then parties would have to campaign nationally rather than focusing on the whims of people in the larger states. The President shouldn't be "determining the fate" of states anyway; his responsibility is to the people of the country as a whole, not to interfering in the affairs of individual states.

The thing to be noted though was that Gore and most democrats in the past have won the "big prize" states. There are just so many smaller states in the mid weast and south that tend to vote Republican that we get an intersting balance. The President should not determine the fate of the states, but federal law beats state law. It is becuase of this that problems, especially enviromental ones, develop.

I'm indifferent to it.

Currently I'm annoyed with it, because, though my state has 10 electoral votes, they're always taken by Dems. The Dems all live in a few populace places (as the poor and/or stupid tend to proliferate), and even though most of the state votes Republican, our votes don't count.

The electoral college is a winner take all situation.

When you 'vote' for the President, you are actually voting for an elector. Whichever Presidential candidate gets the most votes in any state, all of the electoral votes go to that candidate. However, the system is not foolproof. Remember, you are electing an elector. Your elector could vote for another candidate other than the one the elector is supposed to vote for (this has happened). That is why the political parties are very careful to ensure party loyalty by the selected electors.

One of the proposals for the electoral college was proportionality. In other words, each candidate would get the proportion of the state electoral votes as the candidate received in the general election. Should this be enacted, there would be defacto direct election of the President. Then the protection afforded the small states today would be eroded.

Nox

Nox, enlighten me, how many times has this happened? I am guessing mot many, because American politics are so predictable.

[This message has been edited by punkrawkerstonershit (edited 11-11-2002).]

I don't see how it protects the small states, at least with the modern system.

I'd think it lessens their influence, when a candidate really cares mostly about the large states because of the enormous amount of electors they have.

quote:

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Originally posted by punkrawkerstonershit:
Nox, enlighten me, how many times has this happened?

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I was hoping no one would ask. If my memory is correct (and probably not) I recall that it happened twice, once for sure. It was either in the 1830-50 time frame or during the Reconstruction fiasco. I wish I could tell you more. The only reason I remember it is because the elector who didn't follow the party guidelines was literally run out of the state.

Sorry, best I can do for now.

Nox

[copy pasted]
The first problem is the 1952 decision by the United States Supreme Court in Roy v. Blair, holding that a state cannot constitutionally require its electors to vote for the candidates to whom they are pledged*...There have been at least four instances in which individual electors failed to vote for the candidate to whom they were pledged. One occurred in 1820, when an elector pledged to James Monroe voted for John Qunicy Adams instead. His rationale was that his vote would have made the election of Monroe unanimous and that no President other than George Washington was deserving of unanimous support. The other three instances � one in 1956, one in 1960 and one in 1968 � were equally peculiar to the individual elector. None affected an election�s outcome
[/copy pasted]
*another site states that 29 states have laws binding electors to the popular vote (though only 3 nullify the vote) but such laws would be unlikely to survive constitutional challenge.

The main problem is that it effectively disenfranchises people. Millions of people can vote in New York can vote Republican, but if the Democrats win the state the votes of these people are effectively turned by the electoral college into Democrat votes. Similarly, at the last Presidential election, approx 49% of Florida voters who backed Gore effectively had their votes turned into 12 Republican votes.

[This message has been edited by FuckOffandDie (edited 11-12-2002).]

Thanks FOAD for the information.

Nox