Pros and Cons of the Electoral College?

Question

I'm curious to know what people think is good about the Electoral College. Additionally, I'd like to hear from some smart folks whether you think it's constitutional, and what fair alternatives you think there are?

Answer 1

Pro: The Electoral College is set up by the Constitution of the United States, therefore it IS constitutional. The Founders of this nation had a justified fear of complete democracy. They set up a system where supposedly wise men, elected by the people, and holding no other office at the time, would chose a President. They knew "There's a sucker born every minute". They made sure that there was an insulating layer of responsible people between the voter and the presidency. Thus there is some protection from the lies and deceit that went on during election season, then just as it does now.

Con:
1. Those who failed their civics classes, or who have never received any instruction in our system of government, continue to complain and question the Electoral College. This makes the sheep easily identified and led by the barking dogs.

2. Those who wish to take advantage of the gullibility of the average voter would like to do away with the Electoral College, in order to make their nonsense campaigns more effective.

Although the Electors of most states are "pledged" to vote for the winner in that state, and most face criminal penalties for breaking that pledge, there may come a time when the Electoral College is forced to muster its courage and go against the vote. This could happen in a scenario where massive fraud or corruption is found between the national election day and the balloting of the Electoral College. This could happen and is what was intended by the founders of this nation.

Answer 2

I just have to repeat something I said in another post. If you make the proper number of delegates, that is a big state has a larger number of delegates than a small state (which they do, but not in strict enough proportion), and you don't have winner take all, then a delegate system (except for errors in coming up with the right number of delegates in each state), is pretty much the same as election by popular vote. This assumes that can assign the number of delegates at will (instead of through the proportions of congress). It is only when you reduce the number of delegates or change their proportion unevenly, that you favor large or small states. Hence, the bias for small states. But if the National committees simply gave large states more delegates, they could fix that problem (mostly).

Answer 3

Well, of course it's constitutional, because it's REQUIRED IN THE CONSTITUTION!
(See Art. II, sec. 1: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/article02/)
And Amendment XII: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment12/)
It was originally created because the Constitution did NOT require popular votes for president -- and many state legislatures voted for the electors to elect the president. This was the Federalists' general distrust of the common person. There is certainly no reason to have actual people be electors any more -- since each state elects by popular vote and we know whom the state has chosen. All electors do today is add the human element that they may defect (if allowed by law) and not vote for the person that they have pledged to elect. (It's also a cute little reward for teachers or politicos who have been involved in the party -- "Go to the state capitol and cast your ballot on behalf of our party, you loyalist--and thanks for your years of work and thousands of dollars." Not exactly a great reason to keep it going.)

The idea that we essentially elect a president by state rather than by popular vote (the underlying effect of the electoral college today) helps small states, and keeps campaigns from becoming simply battles in NYC, LA, Chicago, Huston, Miami, Dallas, Phoenix, and the other major metro areas. But the effect (that a person can become president by winning fewer votes than his opponent) leads to fundamental unfairness and is antidemocratic. (Note, too, that the votes of the smallest states like Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Alaska effectively "count" for more than votes cast in California or other large states because of the disproportionate representation of small states in the EC.)

The fair alternative would simply be to abolish the EC and vote nationwide, with one person casting one vote, with the person with the highest vote winning (or, as in many systems, a person must win 50%+1 votes, and there are runoffs until that happens). Of course, this would require a constitutional amendment, and we wouldn't get 75% of states to vote for it, because the small states would lose too much.

Answer 4

Pro's: Small states votes actually count

cons: Harder for small 3rd parties to get into the race.


Electoral college is the ONLY constitutional part of the elections. You don't have a constitutional right to vote.

Answer 5

i think the Electoral College is unconstitutional.
it make some state more important than others.