What has changed in the United States that makes the electoral college outdated?

Question

The electoral college was debated over and decided upon at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. What were the reasons for choosing this system over other choices and what has changed since then that makes the electoral college seem outdated?

I think that the Founders didn't trust that the people could make an educated decision by themselves and therefore gave the power to the electors. But, these days travel is easier, there are newspapers, radio, and tv for educating purposes; what other reasons are there for the abolishment of the electoral college?

Answer 1

A LOT has changed.

For one, people are more politically sophisticated, believe it or not. More people live in cities; the literacy rate has grown expotentially and we have mass media. When the Constitution was written, most of the people living in the new United States could not read nor write and lived in rural communities with rudimentary knowledge about anything going on outside their rural communities. The fear of the Founders was that people would petition their friends and relatives to run for office, and the country would be left with a field of thousands of totally unqualified candidates knowledgeable only about local issues (imagine William Smith, the guy from Carolina with a tobacco patch. Immensely popular with those who know him, because he distills a delicious brandywine in his outbuilding. Then multiply William times 5,000). Then imagine some totally qualified guy like Jefferson or Madison saying, "You can't run because you're not qualified; hell, you can't even sign your own petition because you don't know how to write your name". The Founders would be called "Northern elitists" and face accusations of replacing one tyranny with another.

Yes, you're right. The vast majority of people couldn't make an educated decision because they lacked both the education and the information to do so.

The other, perhaps more sinister, reason is the Founders never intended for people to vote for populists. They were snobbish that way. They believed populists and leaders were mutually exclusive. And they not only knew the allure of populist rhetoric and good teeth, but also the flip side where a man like John Adams (old, ugly, boring but thoroughly competent) would not get a look-in.

By the way, there have been consistent calls for the abolition of the Electoral College from all quarters since America became entrenched in a two-party political system whereby only two candidates have a chance of winning. In the days before the Civil War, and right through the 1800s, you still had a slate of 5 or 6 decent candidates running for President, and back when, second past the post became Vice President - the VP was not a Presidential nominee.

Answer 2

The electoral college was a stroke of genius by the founding fathers. It has assured that the high population metro states can't lord it over the less populated agri states in a presidential election. Other countries should adopt the electoral system too. Mexico wouldn't have had the on running political difficulties of their last election. In France the reds are now threatening violence if they don't win. An electoral system in both countries would have put seal of finality on their elections.
The presidental election in the US is too important to leave to the vagarities of a popular vote. Too many dead democrats , felons and illegal aliens voting in presidential elections for there not to be some system in place to counter the fraud.

Answer 3

Yes. It was based on Frederick the Great's system and was very useful when travel and communications were difficult and you had a number of divergent regions with semi-sovereign states who don't trust each other. So if California produces 51 million votes for its candidate and no one else voted for him, he would lose by 175 to 55 rather than winning the election by popular vote. Only three Presidents have been elected contrary to the popular vote: Hayes, Harrison and Bush. In all three cases, the vote was close. Imagine if the whole country had to recount the "hanging chads" and not just one state.

Answer 4

Maybe nothing has changed to make it outdated - it is a great way to ensure that a person must have a broad base of support geographically (as well in total #s), so no one region could "run the country" simply because of its population.

Seems to have worked well recently - it forces candidates to actually listen to what the voters have to say across the country, like in CA, NY, TX, FL, and other major states.

You can't get elected with support only from east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio rivers. Ther are popular enough votes there, but not enough electoral votes.

Answer 5

Electional college is a good system it balances rural and urban voters. Also gives the smaller states a bigger voice than they would have under direct vote. Electoral college was set up to prevent majoratain rule by idoit masses at times. If you abolish the electoral college the politcan would spend 90% of their time in bigger states, and ignore the smaller states. I prefer to keep the electoral college it balance the power states in choosing the next president.

Answer 6

Well the electoral college is outdated adn because of them we now have President Bush as the biggest idiot in US Presidential history. The delagates at the convention chose the Electoral College becuase in the 18th and 19th and early 20th centuries people we very poorly educated and news traveled very slowly. But now in the year 2007 the need for the electoral college is gone becuase of television, radio, newspapers, and of course my favorite the internet.
This system is what cost Al Gore the election in 2000. He won the popular vote but George Bush and him were at wits end to discover who had the majority of the electoral votes. Florida was still undecided but eventually declared Bush the winner. But many votes were not counted since they were defeccted. These votes could have change the election... the Supreme Court ordered the governor of Florida to make a desicion weather to recount or not. But of course the govenor of Florida was none other than Jeb Bush, George Bush's brother.
He declared no recount so Bush won the election.
So in this perfect example you can see why we don't need the electoral college any longer.

Answer 7

Getting rid of the "All-or-Nothing" state voting system. For example, because Democrats usually get a majority of votes in California, if the Democratic candidate wins in that state they get ALL of California's electoral vote, despite the fact that over 5 million votes went to the Republican candidate. Likewise, it happens for other states with Republican majorities. This results in cases like 2000 where Al Gore actually won the election in the national vote, but lost the electoral college count.

I think its time has passed us; the process to select a candidate weeds out the possibility of a complete nut being elected. We really don't need the college anymore, I think it would actually increase voter participation.

Answer 8

Nothing has changed in the United States that makes the electoral college outdated. The electoral college was put in place to ensure that the newly created states would have just as much voting influence as the the populated states. Very smart if you ask me.

Answer 9

Are we researching your term paper for you?

the constitution promises "a republican form of government "both for the US and the separate states, not a democracy. This is not nor has it ever been a constitutional democracy!

17th ammendment changed the electoral college landscape by giving the people (demes of democracy) direct election of US Senators. They were previously elected by the state legislatures.

They were liberals. They trusted that men who were farmers or professionals for "self rule" as opposed to conservatives who thought that only a kling annointed by god Himself was capable of rule.

They thought that us deme wage earners were too likely to be coerced by our employers to make a decision based on "enlightened self-interest"

Since the destruction of an independent press, the so-called "liberal media", I would argue the media's value as "educational"

Answer 10

The electoral college has always worked. We only hear about how bad it is now because the Dems couldn't put up an electable candidate and lost the last two elections.