Why can't America just drop the electoral vote...?

Question

and count each vote as one vote?

Answer 1

Wow! I cannot believe TheDude a strong constitution supporter answered that way!

The Electoral College system WORKS and is supported by the US Constitution. http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa102200a.htm

Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants the power to elect the president and vice president to the states through the Electoral College system. Under the Constitution, the highest-ranking U.S. officials elected by direct popular vote of the people are the governors of the states.
Tyranny of the Majority
To be brutally honest, the Founding Fathers did not give the American public of their day much credit for political awareness.
The Founding Fathers also felt the Electoral College system would enforce the concept of federalism -- the division and sharing of powers between the state and national governments.
Under the Constitution, the people are empowered to choose, through direct popular election, the men and women who represent them in their state legislatures and in the United Sates Congress. The states, through the Electoral College, are empowered to choose the president and vice president.

http://www.funtrivia.com/en/World/Electoral-College-13750.html
Over 700 amendments have been proposed to modify or abolish the Electoral College. All have failed.

Your State Senators and Congressmen/women will vote on behalf of your state. After the polls close, the Senators and Congressmen cast their votes for the candidate that their state chose.

A total of 270 votes are needed to be elected President of the total 538 possible votes.

In 2000 there were only 2 states that did not operate under the "winner take all" method. They were Nebraska and Maine. The other 48 states and D.C. are winner take all electoral votes.

Here's a map with the electoral points for each state in 2004:
http://www.worldatlas.com/webimage/countrys/namerica/usstates/electorl.gif

VOTE TO KEEP AMERICA SAFE!

Answer 2

Three reasons.

1) The electoral college is established in the Constitution. The Constitution was made very difficult to amend to assure that any amendments clearly had majority support over an extended period of time. To amend the Constitution, you need an amendment to be approved by 2/3 of the House, 2/3 of the Senate, and 3/4 of the States. There is only one exception to this rule (and as noted below) that one exception makes an Amendment even harder to pass.

2) The structure of the electoral college rewards small states. The electoral college gives each state one elector for each representative (a standard that is population neutral) and one elector for each senator (a standard that ignores population). California has 53 representatives which means that it is at least 26 times larger than each of the states with one representative (and actually for some of those states more than 53 times larger as there are states that only get a representative because each state gets one). When you add in the Senators, however, California's electoral vote is only 18 times larger than the smallest state. Basically, the mean number of representatives (with 435 representatives currently) is 8.7. Any state under that number has more power under an electoral college than under a popular vote. The smaller you are, the more the electoral college increases your influence. Seventeen states have three or fewer representatives. That number is not only large enough to prevent a proposed amendment from being ratified, its enough to defeat it in the Senate. As such, the only Amendment less likely to be adopted than abolishing the electoral college is one that changed the rule of representation in the Senate -- the one possible constitutional amendment that would require ratification by all of the states.

3) For the most part, the electoral college simply does not make a difference. You can count on one hand the number of elections in which the candidate who led the popular vote did not lead the electoral college (especially in the modern era when all states turned selection of the electors over to a popular vote). In each of those elections, the losing candidate merely had a small plurality. It's hard to get the public worked up for long about something that only happens once every 50 years or so.

Those are the pragmatic reasons. I would note that the U.S. is not the only country that indirectly elects its leader. The number of countries that elect a leader by national popular vote are rather few. Among the major democracies, only France and Russia directly elect their primary leader. Most of the remaining countries that use a direct election are in the developing world (e.g. most of Latin America and some of the democracies in Asia and Africa.) The more common scheme is for the legislature to choose the leader (e.g. Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Canda, Australia, Italy, Israel, India, etc.).

p.s. The existence of the Senate is a much bigger affront to the principle of one man one vote and majority rule than the electoral college. You can get to a majority in the Senate with states containing approximately 18% of the population. To get to a majority of the electoral college votes takes states containing almost 45% of the population.

Answer 3

Because the president is NOT elected by the people. He (or she) is elected by the states. The president presides over the states, not the people.

I assume that you are the victim of public education. You have probably been told that the US is a democracy. If you read the Constitution, you will find the the federal government guarantees a republican form of government to each of the states. In the Pledge of Allegiance, it is to the "republic", not the "democracy" you pledge.

Back to the electoral college: Originally each state was supposed to get an equal vote for the president. The states with large populations wanted to go by popular vote (what you are advocating). A compromise was worked out by splitting the difference. The number of electors for each state is based on 1) the population, that is, the number of Representatives and 2) each state gets two electors for the two Senators.

The electoral college has served us well for over two hundred years. It prevents four or five states with large populations from controlling the election.

People who want to eliminate the electoral college are working to destroy the system of checks and balances the Founders gave us. This would enable special interests to gain control easier over the presidential election.

Answer 4

Because if the Electoral Vote was dropped, unless you lived on one of the top 25 most populace Cites, or one of the top 10 most populace States, you would never see any of the candidates on the TV, radio or in print. You would not hear any news about any of them.

The Electoral Vote ensure each State has a Voice who our President will be.

Answer 5

because it makes the little states important also. what they need to do is make the electoral college represent what the candidate gets vote wise. if they got 40 percent of the vote they get 40% of the electoral college vote not 100% that is how we fix the problem.

Answer 6

States can change the system if they want, but they choose not to. I personally agree with you, the problem is convincing the states to do so. For example, in California, about a third vote Republican but all those votes become worthless since there is a strong democratic majority.

Answer 7

So that New York, Fl, and California alone determine the President?

People who inhabit most of the rest of the country would be alienated cause their vote would never be counted unless they agreed with the big cities.

It's a matter of checks and balances.

Answer 8

I believe that each state can decide whether to use the Electoral College or not.

Answer 9

dude hit it on the nose , plus all you ranting about the constitution needs to be upheld well that is part of it