Should the U.S. abolish the Electoral College?

Question

Think of the U.S. Presidential Election in 2000 where then U.S. Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote and then Texas Governor George W. Bush won the electoral college vote. Bush won the presidency because of the Electoral College. Do you think that indirect presidential elections are meaningless, or an important part of our democracy? What is your opinion? It's for a political science course. Thank you in advance. :)

Answer 1

Considering population is shifting and there is no standardized voting method--(which infuriates me), the electoral college should go. Besides, if that's how Bush got elected, that's reason enough for any sane Citizen to favor it's disappearance.

Answer 2

The Founding Fathers had absolute contempt for "the masses" and simply did not trust them.

This contempt was fully reflected in the Constitution.

First they in general decided that only Americans that will be Constitutionally allowed to make the important decisions would be the elitists in society including of course the rich and powerful and connected.

The first thing the Fathers did was to make sure WE ,THE PEOPLE NEVER WERE ABLE TO ELECT THE PRESIDENT because such an important decision could only be made by APPOINTED ELITISTS which they called the Electoral College.

WE , THE PEOPLE in their view were simply to dumb,too ignorant ,too poor to be trusted with such a decision.

Some will claim that this in fact was not the reason but rather it was an issue of States Rights which is pure crap I will not spend a nano second refutting.

To add insult to injury,the Fathers decided that the most powerful section of Congress (The Senate) was not "open " for democracy and decided that the Senate was to be AN APPOINTED BODY .Needless to say the appointees were the same rich,powerful elitists .

Worse still the number of Senators per State was not to be based upon their population but simply two per state .

After much bitching this was changed by an amemdment which turned the Senate into at least an elected body of WE THE PEOPLE.

HOWEVER,because the founding fathers and the current plutocrats have no use really for democracy in any profound sense,they failed in the amendment to make the Senate a REPRESENTATIVE BODY which is the very core concept of democracy.

So today ,tiny Vermont with less than one million population has two Senators and incredibly California with over 30 MILLION has the same two Senators.

The US is THE ONLY DEMOCRACY in which the citizens do not ELECT their own friggin President and Americans seem quite happy with this situation which in fact says a lot of very very sad things about Americans.

To dumb and too ignorant to be allowed to vote for their own President .Very sad indeed.

Answer 3

The reason for the Electoral College is very easy to understand. First of, our founding fathers were much, much better educated in history than we are today. The reason we have an Electoral College is to keep a few highly populated areas/states from determining the outcome of elections. If we were to eliminate the Electoral College, then cities like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles could over-ride the rest of the nation.

As to Florida in 2000 Innocent, all of the major news medias(read liberal) pooled their money and funded a complete recount of the votes using the rules that were in place at the time of the election (that's what the U.S. Supreme Court ruling stated, and did make sense). After the re-count was finished, President Bush actually picked up votes, but this wasn't widely published because it didn't fit the template that the msm had.

Answer 4

The electoral college is for the benefit of smaller states. If we went strictly with a population based vote we would disenfranchise the smaller states. If we did not have states and a federal system of government then it would work to have a direct democracy.
For example If the entire populations of california, texas, florida and new york voted for one candidate they would win. that means that 46 others states would not be fairly represented because of their lack of size. The electoral college is an attempt to remedy this flaw by given each state a minimum of 3 votes, the 2 senators and atleast 1 congressman. and also by setting the number of electoral votes to a finite number. if we allowed continual expansion we may be subject to tyranny of the majority.

Bush won because he had a majority of states, showing a broad consensus rather than a few metro areas carrying a lot of votes. Now I still believe that Gore got shafted in Florida, but it was his choice to concede before a final count was finished. While the system may seem archaic, it is there to help the Rhode islands, the hawaiis and south dakotas.

Answer 5

here is why we choose the Electoral college. Florida 2000. keep in mind what a multitude it became into? Now think of a Presidential contest desperate with the aid of usual vote the place the type is barely 25,000 votes or much less. you have got the Florida 2000 fiasco X 50. each and every state, each and every precinct would be suffering to recount votes. costs of vote irregularities and bias in counting would be rampant. a minimum of with the electoral college, we are able to limit close contested elections to a million or 2 states max.

Answer 6

You don't need to go to college to know the college vote is bogus. Without it, how could other republicans buy their way into the white house?

Whomever disagreed with me, thanks for the thumbs down. It just shows how ignorant to political business you are. Bush did NOT win either election, yet, he managed to weasel his way into office twice.

Sounds good to me that if 100 people choose one person and 99 choose the other, the one with the greater vote should be in office. Never mind the population of CA and NY. Texas has a large population too.

But if 99 people of different electoral colleges vote one way and all 100 people of another SINGLE electoral college vote the other way, well I is for all da dum stuf we is askin fer.

Why do so many people think that California (for example) all vote the same way? There are almost as many people in CA or NY or TX or FL, not to mention the smaller states like RI or ID who vote one way while the other half vote the other. Popular vote is the POPULAR vote. That's what we learned in school. When someone ran for class president, they didn't campain for individual classes or districts of the school, no, we voted by POPULAR vote.

As for the founding fathers, I think they would turn over in their graves if they saw what has become of the system they instituted. Remember, the founding fathers were not ALL WISE! Everyone makes mistakes. EVERYONE.

Answer 7

One election is a reason to throw the whole system out.

OK so 2000 was a squeaker but 04 Bush got the majority of votes. So he would won there.

If you throw out the electoral college there would be no reason for candiates to go to fly over country and care because all they have to do is win the most vote.

Answer 8

Of course not. I'd rather not have the people from populous States like California and New York always deciding who is elected while the needs of the rest of the country are ignored. I realize that because of the success of public education in this country that a lot of you are smarter than the founding fathers though.

Answer 9

Yes it is important, but I have heard answers both ways on this. In my blog, I discuss a recent article about this very issue that was in last thursday's Wall Street Journal or New York Times, which talks about a change that California is thinking about.

Don't take that writer for the truth........they were big time partisan, but that might be a good resource.

Answer 10

Yes, abolish it: it would make bothering to vote worthwhile in 'safe' states, where you know that a Rep or a Dem is going to get in whether you cast your ballot or not, so you may well not feel it worth the bother. With 50% of eligible voters not bothering to take part in the democratic process, this isn't about getting one party or another in - it's about resurrecting democracy itself.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm off to chuckle at Kirk's belief the US media is 'liberal'... that just kills me :o)