Discussion Question: Election Edition
Should the Electoral College be maintained or abandoned, and why?
posted by Ted @ 01:40
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8 Comments:
At 5/11/08 03:01 ,
Yankee John said...
yes. popular vote makes big states (like CA, NY, FL, TX) even more important then they are now. The electoral college makes it important to visit and speak to issues facing small states (DE, RI, ND, SD, UT). With the electoral college, you can win on the coasts and still lose the general election, like Kerry.
I think this is important. Represent the whole nation, not just the population centers. You ever see what happens when the hollywood crowd go to middle america to "get out the vote"? It's like the Martians have landed. Their voice should not drown out the farmer in iowa.
the framer's got it right. then. now.
At 5/11/08 22:05 ,
Jenny said...
I disagree, but then we discussed that last night and at the second I only have one hand to type... so my disagree will just have to stand as is.
At 6/11/08 01:50 ,
Richard Noggin said...
Of the People, By the People, and For the People. We're in the information age now. All who have the right to vote also have the opportunity to be informed. Shitcan the Electoral College.
At 6/11/08 03:09 ,
MelloYello said...
I agree, the electoral college is outdated. Wiki describes an electoral college with the following quote: "Many times, though, the electors are simply important persons whose wisdom, ideally, would provide a better choice than a larger body. The system can ignore the wishes of a general membership, whose thinking need not be considered."
Much of the reason that the "founders" decided that we needed an electoral college to begin with is because when they were doing their 'founding' many people were uneducated and they felt that if they had an electoral college they could help to weed out the element of the vote that may not have been terribly well informed. Plus, I don't neccisarily live in Louisiana because i chose it so why does my vote only help to earn the person i vote for 9 Elec. votes where as anyone in texas including the other members of my family can help to earn their candidate 34 votes. It's just stupid why does our election process have to be a rube goldberg device?
At 6/11/08 14:22 ,
KAISER ANDY I said...
The electoral college or some other form of chit-collecting from all the states must stand, and for the reason that the Yooj gave.
Seawolf's argument cannot stand if we find citizens that do not have access to computers that can send and receive information other than television. We take it for granted, but the information age is not an acceptable reason to get rid of the electoral college.
At 6/11/08 22:50 ,
Ted said...
I argue against the electoral college with the same argument YJ uses for it.
The EC means that dissenting votes in traditionally red or blue states just don't count. I am essentially disenfranchised because I tend to vote Democratic but live in a GOP-leaning state.
The most recent campaign demonstrated how the EC eliminates the importance of campaigning in most states (e.g. everybody knew DC was going blue, so DC's issues were essentially ignored. Ditto CA, etc). Thus "battleground" states get even more power than their EC votes would imply.
The "wisdom" argument is really weak. Electors are high-ranking party officials, not omniscient wise men. They get their position for one reason: party loyalty. You're not going to get a smarter or better decision out of these guys (except by chance), just one that toes the party line.
Look at the popular v. electoral returns for any recent election. Here's a good website for comparing the data:
http://www.uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html
A quick perusal of this site shows that the EC frequently doesn't closely reflect the popular vote. Look at Reagan's amazing EC victories, and then compare them to his popular results. He still won, but had nowhere near the margin of victory the EC gave him.
Most telling, of course, is the 2000 election. Gore actually won the popular vote but lost the election because his voters were in the wrong districts. Somebody explain to me how THAT's right.
At 8/11/08 05:17 ,
MelloYello said...
and the opposite arguement is that obama had a 6% popular vote lead and got nearly TWICE the amount of EC votes
At 14/11/08 03:44 ,
Ted said...
Mello--
I think that that's the SAME argument. Just because I like the end doesn't imply that I like the means.
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