10 February 2008

Electoral College: Justify Your Existence

Electoral college, you are a relic. Tighten up and off yourself.

Discuss.

4 comments:

Matt said...

Since the Electoral College is apparently not going to speak for itself, I'll give it a shot and welcome corrections since this is far from my area of expertise, if any.

Pros for the current system (based on the wiki entry):

Winning over voters who could go either way, in states that could go either way, is the key to the system. In a popular vote system, the campaigning would be towards energizing the base and generating turnout to a much, much greater extent.

A candidate popular in only the northeast and west coast, for example, can't win. You need broad, national support.

Recounts are possible and election fraud is isolated. It sickens me but I think this is important.

Turnout disparities due to weather or other ballot races / initiatives are suppressed.


Interestingly, the current system allows each state to determine how its electors are divided (Maine and Nebraska's electors are determined by plurality in individual districts). However, it is not in a state's interest to divide electors proportionally because this reduces the state's importance in the system as a whole.

Pete said...

I call for a new system of electing Presidents. The Assembly. As the vast majority of the population of the United States continues to wallow in peasantry, I believe each State should appoint a select number of representatives to gather together in Lebanon, Kansas and determine who the next president will be; completely free of any farcical national election. It is the responsibility of the educated elite to protect the huddled masses from harming themselves by voting under idiotic pretenses like, "He wears cowboy hats, just like me" and "He thinks the Earth is only 6000 years old, just like me". Some people would call such a change unconstitutional, but I say, if the Founding Fathers ever conceived of the technological changes that would allow every dumbass citizen to have a real-time say in the outcome of the election, they would have made some alterations. Join me in my quest to save America from itself!

Pepper said...

I say, "let the Swiss decide!"

Minna said...

Or Cuba Gooding Jr.