Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Should the US abolish the electorial college?

US Constitution Article 2, Section 1
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.


At first, people could not vote for US Senators. Instead, each Senator was chosen by his state legislature. After a while, that method was considered to be too undemocratic. So it was changed in 1913 with the 17th Amendment.

Yet today, you still cannot vote for president. Instead, you vote for a bunch of guys who will choose a president for you. It works well enough most of the time, but every now and then the people choose one candidate and the electorial college chooses a different candidate.

Some argue that the electorial college promotes state's rights and federalism. But under a popular vote system, states would still retain the right to control who gets on the ballot. A popular vote selection process would give more voice to individual voters while still recognizing the role of the states.

Would Gore have won in 2000 if the race were determined by popular votes rather than electorial votes? It isn't as clear as people think it is, because both the Bush and Gore campaigns would adjusted their strategies to earn the most popular votes. Still, a lot of Democrats felt cheated after the 2000 Election. A lot of Republicans would have felt cheated if Bush had won the popular vote and Gore won the electorial vote.

3 comments:

Jim Wetzel said...

Why, no. What should be done is to repeal Amendment 17. Duh-mockracy's been tried ... look what we got. To Hell with it.

Tim Zank said...

At first blush, a "majority rules" sounds good, but I think the electoral system serves us best by and large. The only way I could see a popular vote for the Presidency working is if there were term limits for legislators in place to stop the eternal graft/pork/re-election madness used now to buy and keep entire constituencies beholden to lawmakers.

The electoral college isn't perfect (nothing is) but it does provide some measure of the checks and balances the founding fathers wanted to prevent mob rule.

Robert Enders said...

I think it was Churchill who said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, save for the other forms of government that have been tried from time to time."

I think that the majority of the people as a whole would like to see pork reduced or eliminated. But they will vote for Representatives and Senators who bring home the bacon as long as they think that people from all over the rest of the country are doing the same. The popular vote is their best chance to vote for a president who will fight pork. The way it is now gives far too little voice to those in red and blue states alike; and disportionately far too much voice to battleground state voters.

Search This Blog

Offices on the Ballot - Allen County 2024

  OFFICES ON THE 2024 BALLOT ALLEN COUNTY INDIANA   FEDERAL   President of the United States United States Representative Dist...

Blog Archive

Labels


Brgd. General Anthony Wayne US Continental Army

Sitemeter




My blog is worth $11,855.34.
How much is your blog worth?

Followers

About Commenting

Keep it clean and relevant to the post. If you have a question that isn't related to a recent post, email me at enders.robert@gmail.com . You can also email me if you want to make an anonymous comment.

DISCLAIMER

Per the by-laws of the Libertarian Party of Allen County, the Chair is the official spokesperson of LPAC in all public and media matters.

Posts and contributions expressed on this forum, while being libertarian in thought and intent, no official statement of LPAC should be derived or assumed unless specifically stated as such from the Chair, or another Officer of the Party acting in his or her place, and such statements are always subject to review.