thats' right you heard it here,, the electoral college is outdated,, not fair,, and just needs to be done away with,, anybody with me on this.
are you going to bark all day little doggie,, or are you going to bite
You're right, but do you really think Bush would push to get the system fixed during his time in office? It would be like admitting that he lost in 2000.
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I must admit, as an outsider looking in I've never understood the electoral college system. If a state has X number of electoral votes why do they have to award them all to one candidate? For example, in the case of Florida 2000 wouldn't it have been fairer to give their votes as 13-12 in favour of Bush, rather than 25-0? If each state gave a proportion of their votes to each candidate depending on how many votes they received you'd get a much better reflection of the overall preference of the country in the final tally.
sharethat's a wonderful idea,, makes sense to me,, now if we can just get the government to go along with it.
are you going to bark all day little doggie,, or are you going to bite
Some states do split their votes (two I think).
The electoral college was set up for a society in which the common man was not nearly as educated as he is now, and couldn't really be trusted to make an informed decision; for a while, at the beginning, the popular vote was all but thrown out. The electors used to be highly educated individuals; now, the only real requirement is to be party loyal, insuring that when you vote, you'll vote for the person you're supposed to. There isn't really a need for one now, sure, but I don't see an abolition of the electoral college in the near future.
Be carefull not to get sunburnt, or we will have to rub you down with SPF SEXY!
Well the amount of electoral vote is based on population. So big states have more votes then small states do and if you havent notice presidential candidates usually Pander to big states then the small ones. I really dont see how it be any different if you went by the popular vote alone. Besides we dont use the EC for anything else. Like when people elect a governor. We dont count the votes for each county and then assigned them electoral votes based on each county population. Why dont we do this for governor. Well because its alot easier to just count the votes and see who win. Instead of adding another unnessicary step to the process and making more complicated. Besides most people count themselves as Americans first and then where ever they live second. I just see no reason why someone vote should count differently depending on were they live. and if we did get rid of the EC. If anything like 2000 ever happened again there would be a CLEAR winner. Besides its not like we live in the 19th century anymore. There are ways (TV, Internet) for people to find out where the candidates stand on the issues without having to be at a rally.
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There is a simple solution to the Electoral College if you want it. A former senator is still out there pushing it. Instead of ammending the constitution which is impossible, change the laws of each 50 states to award their Electoral Votes to the winner of the Popular Vote.
shareAs much as I disagree with the outcome of the election, I understand why we have to keep the electoral college.
If we went to a simple "majority" vote, all the smaller states would be COMPLETELY ignored. Candidates would only campaign in NY, LA and Chicago.
The interests and needs of the "common man" would no longer be considered. As it is now, they have to go to Iowa and New Hampshire and states like Missouri can put one candidate over the edge.
If anything, they should give all states a minimum amount of electoral votes, like 10 to make it MORE fair. Some important states, like Alaska, have only 2. But their interests are so crucial to the rest of us that they deserve more reprentation. Kansas has only 6, and while not have that many people compared to NY, it makes that up with fields and cows that feed the country.
So if every state has at LEAST 10, and then let the other states that have more than that due to sheer population stay at their current numbers.
(You can look to Canada's political system for an example. Folks in the prairie provinces get little say about what happens in the capital, and all laws there are federal with little room for differences between provinces. The whole country is rules by Ottawa. Also, any province can vote to leave the Candadian confederation, but you know what happens when an American state tries to secede...hundreeds of thousands dead in a war.)
My sentiments exactly.
America is a diverse country, but there is a noticeable majority, and if the majority were allowed to rule, the minority would be ignored and oppressed, which is uncharacteristically un-American. When the Revolutionary War broke out, we were the minority. The founding fathers put the system of representative democracy in place for a reason... to protect the minority from mob/majority rule.
Direct democracy on America's scale would ruin us by having politicians pander only to the big states (as the person above me described), run an entire campaign on one platform, disenfranchising the other peoples' votes since their interests aren't being represented, and one party would be in power for a long time, because the government would barely change unless a presidential disaster were to take place on the scale of the Great Depression.
The U.S. Constitution has flourished so long because we have upheld the principles outlined in the Constitution and the Federalist Papers. Every person has a right to be represented, which was another concern dating back to revolutionary times, with "no taxation without representation."
That is exactly why I am against Proposition 8 - that the majority has voted to take rights away from the minority. It is, on principle, wrong and goes against what the Founding Fathers created.
I find it funny that everybody makes a big deal about the small states being ignored. Well i hate to break it to you but the small states get ignored in the system we currently have. The states with the biggest population get more EC votes and the one the smallest get the smallest amount of EC votes and guess what states that the candidates spend most of the time. Well its not the small states. This idea that the EC protects people in small states is stupid.
shareThe thing about the electoral college is that your votes are not counted especially if you support the oppossing party that the state normally supports.For example, a Republican's vote does not matter in a blue-state California and a Democrat's vote does not matter in a red-state Texas.
shareI have long said that the Electoral College was possibly the most brilliant system our forefathers put together and is just as relevant and needed now as it was when it was created. The reasons put forth by Bladerunnerrr in his/her comment above took the words right out of my mouth. The Electoral College system guarantees that prospective candidates pay attention to and woo the votes of the little guys.
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the electoral college doesn't represent the country as a whole like the Popular vote,, the electoral college needs to be totally done away with or re done to make it more fair,, those big state shold't have as many votes as they do , and the little states like for example rhode island need more,,,
are you going to bark all day little doggie,, or are you going to bite