Does the USA need presidential election reform??? Our system is outdated!!!?

Question

1. should we abolish the electoral college system described in the US Constitution and simply go for a direct vote for the leader of the executive branch? I have no intentions to dismantling the rest of the democratic republic process we rely upon in voting in Congress and other lower level offices, but the electoral college just seems so-outdated and unnecessary. An individual vote is almost worthless in an EC system. Direct elections. One vote per citizen for the President.

2. Iowa??? New Hampshire??? We're relying on two small states to determine a large portion of the USA political future? The president is the leader for all US citizens and should reflect the majority of voters found throughout the land and not two small-time states of little importance.

3. I envy the British and their election process of a Prime Minister. It lasts only a few weeks. For us, it lasts 1 and a half years now!!! It's overtop and wasteful. It also makes us jaded and apathetic.

Answer 1

Oh, to have a Parliamentary system--except that it would mean a complete restructuring of our government, which we don't have to do.

What I think we do need:

1. Junk the electoral college. It was anachronistic back round the turn of the 20th century, much less the 21st. We're at the point when direct voting is not only possible, but vital.

2. Tighten election laws, with heavy penalties for those playing fast and loose with local voters' qualifications. No more discouraging groups from casting their vote. Mandatory 'motor-voter' registration.

3. Place limits on when the campaign season. Ten months should be more than enough for a primary and a final vote.

4. Floating regional primaries. Every elections cycle, a different region of the country goes first. No more caucuses--period.

Answer 2

Is it the number of states he wins by not the number of votes?
UK first past the post wins system
We do not vote for a prime minster but for which party to run the country but we do tend to judge each party by there leaders.
At the moment I can't tell them apart[the party not the leaders]

Answer 3

I believe your question is mis-categorized. The topic here is history, not political rants. (By the way, in future please refrain from using three erotemes in a row, or using a mix of several exclamations and interrogations. We read here so there's no need to shout hysterically.)

However, since you asked...

On the first point, the Electoral College exists for the same reason the Senate exists. When the Constitution was framed the small states were anxious to preserve their status as sovereign entities. They would not join a Union which would be politically dominated by the most populous states. The EC, just like the Senate guarantees that the smaller states have a voice in power and policy.

Here's something you ought to learn if you haven't learned by now... the reason this country has lasted 231 years is that we are NOT a pure democracy, we are a republic which gives a disproportionate share of power to the minority. The Founders were learned men. They read their history and took the lessons therein to heart. Athens was a democracy, and as long as you were one of the 50-plus percent it was a satisfactory system. But if you were in the simple minority, Athens could be like a dictatorship of the mob. When the chips were down their pure democracy failed them and they lost their independence.

What is all this concern about the primaries? They are important only to the lazy press who have to fill out their mindless 24-hour news channels. Get a grip on yourself and take a look at the winners of Iowa and New Hampshire in past election cycles. The list of winners of these race doesn't jibe too well with the list of presidents.

The fact that you envy the British system indicates that you haven't looked at it very closely.

To Victor:

If I understand your reply you believe that fame and fabulous wealth have been the sine qua non of successful candidates since TR. If so please explain, Woodrow Wilson, not a fabulously rich man by the standards of the day. Nor was he well-known outside academic circles. Also, please account for William Howard Taft, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Harry Truman, James Earl Carter, and William Jefferson Clinton. All these men were certainly well off financially in an absolute sense, but none were supremely wealthy, and none had inherited their fortunes, small as they were. Nor were any well-known outside their home states before they stood for the office.

Richard Nixon was not wealthy, but he was well-known in 1968, but that was from his run for the presidency in 1960. In that race he was up against one of the few men whose biography actually agrees with your generalized assessment of presidents since Theodore Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. JFK was the scion of the one of the most powerful families in New England, he was wealthy and famous (a fawning press corps made certain of that), yet he wasn't a bad president in spite of these undemocratic hindrances.

Ronald Reagan, though not wealthy by Hollywood standards, was certainly well-known from his film career. Strangely Europeans don't seem to know any more than that about him. I get the impression that you think he went straight from the movies into the White House, carried on the backs of jubilant cowboy movie fans. The truth is Reagan ran on the strength of his political experience, having been the twice-elected governor of California. (State governors and retired generals get the presidency more often than those with other qualifications.)

Warren G. Harding was moderately wealthy and well-known, at least to the extent that any newspaper publisher is well-known.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the scion of one New York's finest families, so maybe he fits the bill as well. (Though it seems to me that by your formulation there should have been a Rockefeller presidency by 1932, fabulously rich and powerful as that family was.)

Lyndon Baines Johnson was from a poor Texas family. He made a career in politics by being a loyal back-bencher, slowing working his way up the ladder until he finally entered Congress in 1937 where he remained long enough to become powerful through seniority, in other words he was a hack. He would have never gotten the nomination on his own because of his crude manners and lack of executive experience, but in a unique situation in 1960 he received the vice-presidential nomination of his party as a counter-weight to a New England Catholic running as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, that party being chiefly Southern and Protestant at the time. Kennedy was murdered and Johnson followed him into the White House. LBJ was as much a man of the people as we have ever had in the office, a truly self-made man and the a devoted New Deal populist. He managed to win the 1964 election on his own account with a handy majority.

Gerald Ford was another back-bencher.He gained the White House in the most unusual manner imaginable, and was neither wealthy nor well-known, in fact he was downright obscure.

George H. W. Bush was the scion of another well-healed New England family, much like JFK. He was groomed for public service by Andover, Yale and the navy. Though he was wealthy he wasn't really well-known in 1988, and that is why the primary campaigns were so crucial that year -- none of the candidates from any party were well-known outside of their native states. Bush won mainly on the strength of being more credible on foreign policy than his opponent in a time when the greatest concern was the fate of the tottering Soviet empire. His son, George W. Bush, had the advantage of his name and family, but his opponent, Al Gore had at least as much wealth and fame. Bush won partly by an electoral fluke, but mostly because Gore behaved like an *** when he had only to act "presidential" to win.

Now to sum up, out of 17 presidents since TR, only 2 fit your criteria (fabulously wealthy and popular). Nice shooting, Tex.

Answer 4

This is an Englishman replying and therefore not to be taken seriously by Americans, I suppose.

There seem to be three main weaknesses of the US Constitution as it affects the office of President:

1. There is no separation of the Head of State and the political leader of the ruling party. That is almost exactly what we English had before 1688, when the monarch decided parliamentary appointments and also represented the nation internationally. We decided to separate the two roles in 1689 and since then the monarch has had no powers over foreign policy or fiscal policy either. In this sense, the President of the USA is more like an old-fashioned European monarch than any European monarch today. I wonder about the wisdom of such a backward-looking approach to government, with so much autocratic power in the hands of one person, even if for only four years at a time.

2. Since 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt was elected President, the most important qualifications for the office have been fame and fabulous wealth. Before him, Presidents seem to have been elected on a popular vote over their abilities, closeness to real life, personal principles, truthfulness and honesty, and willingness to consider alternative views. Teddy Roosevelt appears to have put an end to that and all Presidents since have been rich and famous, and well-known for ignoring anyone who disagreed. If this analysis is true, then democracy is diminished in USA. Abraham Lincoln wouldn't be elected today, for example, or Andrew Jackson and maybe not even Thomas Jefferson.

3. The way the electoral college works, it is possible for a President to come to power with a minority of the popular vote. That's bad enough but the first point above becomes even more important. The President appoints to office the leading law-makers, military personnel, central banking and financial experts, and public information gurus. This situation will exacerbate the loss of democracy by filling government with unelected hangers-on to the Head of State who also happens to be the head of the executive branch of government.

This situation is so out-of-date, that a review of the USA Constitution seems overdue - in my opinion as an Englishman and therefore utterly to be rejected, as I say.

Edit:
1. Spsipath below seems to agree with me. The electoral college could represent a minority of voters if the caucuses rally in low-population states.
2. In parliamentary systems, no one votes for the prime minister. The head of state (elected president or constitutional monarch) invites the leader of the winning group (usually a party but not always) to form a government or administration, and to become prime minister. It is then up to that person to attempt to put together an administration with a set of policies based on election pledges. Sometimes this can't be done and the head of state has to ask someone else. Quite different from the USA system where the President is, in effect, the temporary absolute monarch.

Answer 5

1. Yes. Unlike what another poster said, the electoral college system was really designed to keep power in a relatively small group of people. The United States was founded by elites, and they did not want some bunch of farmers making the crucial decisions.

2. Sort of. Iowa and New Hampshire do not officially have any extra power. Presidential candidates just pay more attention to them because they have early primaries and have a population that supposedly represents a cross-section of the country. In practice, this means that their election results end up swaying voters in other states. What should probably be done is to force all states to hold primaries on the same day, and that day should be governed by the federal government so that it doesn't get pushed forward as much as it has this year.

3. Yes. In fact, all democratic systems around the world (other than the USA) elect leaders within weeks to a couple of months - no exception. This is possible in part because there is less of a role for corporate donations to political campaigns. If a company can't spend $10 million on a candidate, the candidate will have a $10 million shorter campaign. Also, in most other countries, the beginning date of election campaigning is strictly enforced. This means candidates have a harder time forcing earlier and earlier campaigns by taking up ads to "beat the other guy to the punch".

Answer 6

yes off with her head.

Answer 7

Our system has many faults, presidential politics being one. People rarely talk about the realities of our system. Our founding fathers never believed in inequality. You had to be a white man with land, then man of any color, you had to read in many states, and finally we allowed women to vote.

Also, within our Represenative Democracy we have very little choice. 'Represenstive Democracy' are merely terms used to help ligitemize an illegitamate government. Our founding fathers never truly believed everyone was intitelded to a voice; however, they needed the support of the common agricultural base in order to sustain revolution and then maintain control.

In reality, we live under an oligarchy. The rule by a few, at least in relation to the rest of the population. We have a two party system that limits our choices between two canidates and money is funneled into the system to ensure its survival. There's nothing represenative about it. I couldn't relate to a canidate for president since Andrew Jackson, and I would've never voted for him.

Answer 8

Sorry, Marco M, but you're mistaken. Candidates are chosen by big money, period. In 1976, both US parties changed their by-laws so the candidate that wins the most primaries HAS to be given the nomination. The primaries are won by the candidates with the most money. They always have been, they always will.

The big money sources follow the primaries and caucuses. Who ever wins in Iowa and New Hampshire will get a huge influx of money. This doesn't mean they will win, but it sure helps! Remember, though, that John McCain won New Hampshire in 2000, but look who we got in office thanks, I'm sure, to the Bush Family Trust, again, the big money candidate.

As far as reform, oh, hell yes! This election cycle started during the 2006 elections! It's still going on and it still will go on until the people of the US stop it! We have to stop letting the media ru(i)n our lives. They are the worst kind of yellow journalists! They goad a politician into making some comment, and then headline the pol's comment! They're creating events so that they can report them, and we Americans are too stupid to turn it off!

Answer 9

We don't need to change the Electoral College system, what we need is to understand it's purpose.

The President is chosen by the Electoral College. The reason for that comes from the Constitutional function of the Federal government in the first place. The Federal government was intended to be small, limited, and a body comprised of the individual and mostly autonomous states. The Federal government had very little to do with the People at large.

For this reason, the People were given the power to select their own Representatives, but balancing power was given to the individual states in the form of their Senators. The choice of the President was left to the States, who were free to select the EC delegates as they saw fit. This is still true, and was observed in the Bush v. Gore cases that no one has a Constitutional right to any input on the choice of President beyond that given by their state of residence. In other words, if a state constitution permitted the EC delegates to be chosen by the Governor, the USSC couldn't overturn his decision.

In the early part of the 20th Century, the republic aspects of our system were damaged greatly by taking away the representation of the states to the Federal government, when Senators were no longer chosen by state legislatures, but by direct popular vote. Despite this occurring almost a century ago, apparently no one has considered that it completely eliminated the purpose of having a bicameral legislature in the first place.

This enabled the rapid expansion of the Federal government, especially starting under FDR, as they increased spending, and totally ignored any inconvenient limitations on Federal activity. Neither of the two major parties stand in their way, and they only limit their argument over the order of unconstitutional projects to pursue, neither sees the Constitution as a barrier to anything. With a "mandate from the People", our Congress feels no need to limit themselves to even the "possible", let alone the Constitutional. We have become a more complete Democracy, which is by no means immune to becoming a tyranny in its own way.

The last vestige of the republic is the Electoral College. This is coming under increasing attack in the form of undereducated people calling for a direct popular vote for the president, and failing that, state legislatures apportioning their EC candidates.

No, our system isn't outdated. It's totally ignored. The reform we need is to return to it.

As far as Iowa and New Hampshire go, we're not just relying on two small states to decide who will be the next President, we're relying on two parties that only have the support of a bare majority of the People, combined, most of whom follow politics like others follow sports, except that sports fans would never let a sports announcer get away with the innacuracies, incomplete stories, and downright lies that the political media feeds them.

Oh, we have problems, but the "fix" is to require our Federal government live within the boundaries of the Constitution as written. It would help to repeal the Seventeenth Amendment as well, but even that isn't strictly necessary.

The only "change" we need is to live within the rules.

Answer 10

I'll concede #1, but as for #2, we're not "relying" on two small states. They simply indicate the preferences of a large number of people in two different places, and so the media feels they indicate which candidates are viable (have "legs,") and which aren't.
Re: #3, this year is an anomaly because it's the first time in decades when there is no presumed nominee of each party. Yes, the process is WAY too long this election, but there's a lot of sorting out to do. Next time will probably be much shorter.