The Electoral College?

Question

The Electoral College diminishes the voice of the people, thus, is removing the Electoral College a good remedy to the problem?

Answer 1

I've always found it fascinating that a Presidential-hopeful can win in popular votes but lose in electoral votes. In my opinion, America has spoken and by majority the person who wins the popular votes should be President.

I've never been an advocate of the Electoral College. I have not voted in the last couple of Presidential elections because I feel like my votes do not count as much as they should (especially since I live in Broward County in south Florida where all of the controversy seems to take place with butterfly ballots and what not).

If we as a people could vote whether or not to have an Electoral College, then I would speak further on the subject, but because what we want doesn't matter then all I'm doing is wasting my breathe (or keystrokes).

Great topic though!

Answer 2

(Copies, Pastes old answer. Since we get one of these questions every day)

Pro: 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 3

It might be a good remedy, but it will never happen unless there are 2 or 3 more 2000-like controversies, since changing the electoral college requires 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 2/3 of State legislatures (meaning that a lot of little, over-represented states will have to voluntarily give up their extra power.

Answer 4

If 5 wolves and 1 sheep have a direct vote on what's for dinner, too bad for the sheep huh?

If we had a direct vote, it would be no different. The fact is still to this day, the majority of people in the USA live within 200 miles of where the Mayflower landed.
look at the official 2000 census population map:
http://www.census.gov/geo/www/mapGallery/images/2k_night.jpg

Those people would vote THEIR interests. which there is nothing wrong with that, but what about the people in flyover country? The Electoral college ensures they have a voice. That's what it was set up to do.

Answer 5

The College does give a greater proportional voice to smaller states, and the winner-take-all system that has developed means that a candidate with nation-wide appeal may lose out on electoral votes. It was originally intended for people to vote for electors, who would then meet to use their own judgment on the election of president and vice-president, but there's no going back to that.

On the other hand, it prevents candidates with a powerful regional base from overwhelming the general election.

A possible compromise might be to have each congressional district choose its own electors, with the other two votes going to the state's overall winner.

Answer 6

The Electoral College, under which states generally vote as a block - with all their electoral votes going to the winner of the popular vote in the state, is great for people who live in swing states such as Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio. People in swing states (also known as battleground states) get lots of visits from candidates who pay attention to what they want. The candidates also spend a great deal of money in those states for campaign advertisements.

The Electoral College is great for the Miami Cubans because neither party wants to upset them by easing the embargo on Cuba.

Unfortunately, if you don't live in a swing state, you are just a spectator in presidential elections - The candidates don't even bother to visit spectator states except to raise campaign contributions, because it is assumed that the state will vote blue or vote red. Why bother with the needs of Texas or California, when you know that Texas's electoral votes are going to go to the Republican and California's electoral votes are going to go to the Democrat?

Some Republicans in spectator states, such as Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, favor keeping the Electoral College. These people claim that getting rid of the Electoral College would favor liberals on the East and West Coasts. But if John Kerry had won just 60,000 more votes in Ohio, he would be president today, even though Bush won the national popular vote by more than 3 million votes.

In theory, the Electoral College gives more power to small states like Alaska or Montana, because each state gets at least 3 Electoral Votes, but in practice the candidates don't pay any attention to a small state, unless it is also a swing state with roughly an equal number of Democratic and Republican voters.

There is a realistic plan to get rid of the electoral college, and the state of Maryland has just enacted it into law. The Hawaii legislature has passed a similar bill and it is awaiting the signature of Hawaii's Governor.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/10/schneider.electoral/index.html

The idea of one person - one vote is an important principal in a democracy. But the greatest evil of the electoral college is that it concentrates power in a very few states, something that people who favor the Electoral College claim that it avoids.
Source(s):

For more information, see:

http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/pages/explanation.php
and
http://www.every-vote-equal.com/

Answer 7

The Electoral College needs to be abolished. We no longer need it. People are so well informed of things now that they can make that decision for themselves. Everyones vote should count and yet the Electoral College goes over the peoples votes. We need to be heard more.

Answer 8

Direct vote is the remedy to eliminate the electoral college. However, the election law must be amended by Legislature.

Answer 9

Consider:

A citizen of the State of California, with a population of about 34 million, is also a citizen of the United States, with a population of about 300 million. California is entitled to elect two United States Senators, one for each 17 million Californians.

A citizen of the State of Wyoming, with a population of about 500,000, is also a citizen of the United States and is also entitled to elect two United States Senators, one for each 250,000 Wyomingites.

The principle is similar to that underlying the Electoral College: these outcomes are not inadvertent or accidental or unintended. They are very much intended, for the purpose of preventing, say, the States of New York and California from overwhelming the other states of the Union, and it also undermines nascent factionalisms by discouraging the rest of the country from overwhelming New York and California by ganging up on them and outvoting them every time.

If California is our most populous state, which it is, we don't need to know precisely what New York's population is, for even if it were the equal of California's the two together could not exceed 70 million or so, which would be clearly outnumbered by the 230 million residing in the other 48 states.

Our constitutional republic necessarily involves its citizens in dual loyalties: one to their country, the other to their states. This diffuses power to prevent tyranny and undermines factionalism to prevent government by splinter groups patched together into a multitude of squabbling coalitions.

We should be very slow to tinker with our Constitution, lest we make another mistake like those of the 17th (direct popular election of United States Senators) and 18th (Prohibition) amendments.

Answer 10

The Electoral College was put in place to fix the difference between the large states, such as California, and the small states, such as Vermont.