Do you think its time to change from electoral votes to popular votes for the presidential elections?

Question

Do you think it's unfair to use the electoral votes instead of popular votes? In my opinion I say its unfair.

Answer 1

No. The electoral college was created as means to save us from the chaos of mob rule, much like the senate. If we let the "popular" vote win, the candidate's platform will always be "lets sieze the assets of the richest 49.9% and give it to the poorest 50.1%." Our forefathers had the intelligence and foresight to see this. To undo it would be showing our stupidity and shortsightedness.

Answer 2

Going to a popular vote would put even more pressure on presidential candidates to raise even more money, leading to an even more "bought and paid for" president.

Most states are already decided before an election begins. Only a relative few are toss-ups that require candidates to spend substantial money attempting to swing the vote count their way. Make it a popular vote and the candidates will need to spend money EVERYWHERE, drastically increasing their need for campaign contributions, increasing the political debts they would owe those contributors.

I might support going to a popular vote if the money could be pulled out of the equation, but that's unlikely for numerous reasons, some of which are constitutional.

Answer 3

Yes, I do, I really don't see how the old-school, colonial, "big state/little state" issue applies anymore to our *50* states in the *21st* century. And we do have a problem with people gaming and rigging the system so that the majority gets screwed out of their paid-for (taxed!) representation quite often now. Not to mention, it gives the 3% of the population that is still down on the farm and is still living in a predominantly rural state *way too much* influence in the elections. Why the hell should some sparse backwater like Montana have more say than Illinois, New York or California? Why *should* New freaking Hampshire matter in the grand scheme of things as much as it does?

Whole thing is seriously rigged and FUBAR, the Founding Fathers would *not* appreciate what our modern politicians have done *to* their system. They'd likely understand it with some reasearch, but they'd also have nothing but contempt for it. The Electroal College was made to make elections *fair* not *unfair*. It was meant to keep the little guy in the process.....not to shut him out in some Bizarro-land fantasy game wherein some *hick* in Iowa gets more say, almost literally more of a vote, than I do.

Am I pissed and bitter about being screwed out of my country for the past several years? Oh yeah. But it is also about more than that. It is about waking the hell up, changing with the times so that our children don't have to deal with living in one monstrous RUIN wherever they go.....do we really want our nation to BE one big societal breakdown like New Orleans was post-Katrina, ALL OVER? From sea to shining sea? Do we really?

Do something. Focus on owning the State Legislatures so we can *force in via super-majority* the Constitutional Amendments we need to get this nation *sane and rational* again.....

Answer 4

I do think it is time to change it. The original electoral college idea was formed in order to remedy the large state versus small state issue. Today, i don't think we are worried as much about that. However, it would take a Constitutional Amendment to change the system, so it would not be an easy thing to do.

Answer 5

Yes it is unfair we would have a completely different president if we would go by the popular vote.In States that are predominately democratic Republicans might as well not vote because it wont matter and vice versa.

Answer 6

Be careful what you wish for!! Clinton was voted into office with only 34% of the popular vote due to a third party candidate, and Bush was voted into office this last time with a record breaking popularity vote! He SMOKED Gore with the popular vote. Check your history!!

Answer 7

No. The existing system insures that an elected candidate has received support from all over the country. Also, trying to do a recount, if you have to recount the entire country, is MUCH more painful than recounting a single state.

Answer 8

the objective of the electoral college is to stability the needs of the smaller states with the overwhelming numbers of the extra desirable states. there are cases as quickly as we are a rustic of three hundred million human beings. there are cases as quickly as we are a rustic of fifty states. On election day, we are the two. EDIT: it has no longer something to do with issues like "human beings have been extra distant" or "we did no longer have computers to characteristic numbers up." this is been appropriate to the distribution of political ability.

Answer 9

To heck with unfair. The Constitution created the most powerful nation in the history of the world, and yet there is always someone, usually young and naive, who thinks he has a better idea.

Answer 10

Before ANY changes to our voting system are done, we must add a provision allowing only those with a high enough IQ to be capable of abstract thought to qualify to vote.