popular election yet still win the presidency. How does this work? Is it good for America?
2007-02-25 15:25:34 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Yes it's a good thing. It brings more power to the states and it gives a very fair representation of the country. It's so that New York and California can not dominate and soley decide the elections based on their population. The way we elect presidents is through 50 indivdual state elections. There is no national election for president or any other elected government position.
Each state has a certain number of electoral votes. The amount of electoral votes a state has is determined by the number of US representatives it has and plus the 2 senators. The candidates want to win as many states as they can so they can rack up their electoral college "points," and trying to get enough "points" to eventually win the election.
2007-02-25 16:18:24 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the electoral college was formed because the original 13 colonies were separate political entitied when they formed the original United States. It was thought that a better way to elect the president was to have each state vote for the president instead of each person, thus acknowledging that a state is more then just a line on a map.
I tend to think this is a bad system since I live in California. This system gives smaller states a disproportiante number of votes compared to large states. The minimum votes for a state is 3 and if you look at states like North Dakota you can do the math and see that they have more votes per capita then California does...which I hate.
2007-02-25 15:54:19 · answer #2 · answered by Ron N 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It happened in 2000, Gore won the popular vote, Bush won the majority of electoral votes.
The electoral college is basically a compromise between the smaller states and the larger ones. There are 50 states, but a handful of them contain more than half the population.
2007-02-25 15:28:57 · answer #3 · answered by Vegan 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The Electoral College IS the final say so...no matter what people may think of it. Good for America...don't know, but this next election should be the pits.
2007-02-25 16:05:34 · answer #4 · answered by chole_24 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Each state gets a certain number of points in a winner-take-all thing for each state. If I win Florida by one vote, I get all 25 of their electoral votes.
The idea was that the common man is too dumb to vote, so we'll let them indirectly vote.
2007-02-25 15:29:52 · answer #5 · answered by Robbie 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
ask Al Gore he can tell you all about winning the popular vote yet losing the presidency. As for being good for our country, no we've been stuck with Bush and these illegal wars because of it.
2007-02-25 15:28:56 · answer #6 · answered by jwk227 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
It has happened a few times. The system has served us well for over 200 years. If it aint broke, don't fix it.
2007-02-25 15:28:16 · answer #7 · answered by yupchagee 7 · 2⤊ 3⤋
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/electcollege.htm
2007-02-25 15:28:37 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the Republicans love it.... what more is there to say....
2007-02-25 15:44:16 · answer #9 · answered by jerome2all 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋