Point being, "the founding fathers came up with the idea" doesn't make it a good one. They were just people, and their ideas should be subject to critical evaluation. JMO

And FYI I say this as someone who voted for Bush in 2000 and was very glad for the Electoral College that year.

The next year, not so much...

edit: Wow, here's a fascinating 1992 article about Bill Clinton and the role of superdelegates that year...

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

I fail to see where we differ. They had some really crappy ideas (excluding people from voting based on gender) and some fantastic ideas (electoral college being just one of many). I happen to think that most of the crappy ideas have been weeded out.

Personally, the 3/5 thing I don't have a problem with, because 1) it would given Southern states much more leverage in political matters (perhaps making slavery more prevalent that it already was?) 2) It would have placed an undue tax burden upon Southern states, penalizing them for their non-tax paying population.

except for the not being fully human part, I guess

meh

I have to admit, though, as a piece of political theater this election cycle has been fascinating. I really can't wait to see what happens at the Democratic convention.

But then I remember that this is real life and not a movie, and I weep silently to myself.

I don't care if the winner one 1 state, as long as I knew that my vote counted the same as one in that 1 state, I'd feel OK.

what about just going by the popular vote, period..................? I mean, surely we're at the point now where we can trust the electorate, right?

Someone once told me something about democracy that, personally, I think is brilliant.

"TRUE Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner."

(Hey, do me a favor and go back and re-read my reply to your "not fully human" comment. You'll notice that at no time does the US Constitution state that blacks are not fully human (or 3/5 human), it merely states that 3/5 of the total number of non-free persons will be counted towards a state's population for the purpose of apportioning the state's representatives, and the amount of taxes paid. Example: a state has a population of 50,000 "non-free persons," only 30,000 of those persons will be counted towards the state's population. This does not mean that the US Constitution disputed the humanity of black people.)

Cos the land of love and freedom,
Is just a baby's breath away
And if we hold hands together
We can bring back the USA

The USAAAAAA, yeah!
Bring back the USAAAA, yeah!
The farging USAAAA yeah!
Bring back the USAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Are you planning to eat some Democrats?

re: the 3/5 thing, the point is that the slaves still were actual people, but they weren't counted as such... whatever rationale they had for it, it still amounted to the same thing. Cuz, you know, maybe a better idea would have been to outlaw slavery in the first place or something. if indeed all men were created equal

How is giving a state a voice disproportionate to the number of people it has living in it fair?

But women need to get back in the kitchen and have babies

*wishes Hilary Clinton would get back in the kitchen, but not make any more muppet freak babies, kthnx*

because it keeps things proportionate for the people who matter.

Those being?

not the slaves or the women, that's for sure

Ah, you were being sarcastic. I'm off my game today. Anyway, elections should mearly count the vote of the general populace and call it a day.

It's not giving them a "disproportionate" voice. It's giving them an equal voice.

See, cuz back then, they actually cared about matters important to the states and not just "the people." Also, they kind of wanted each individual state to be treated equally,

Take a looke at the electoral college, the most populated states STILL get the most votes (e.g. the "most say"), the electoral college just ensures that the smaller "insignificant" states are not ignored.

I thought that the states were made up of people........................ ah forget it

so, Clinton/Obama, huh

If their voice is only equal because they're making it be, and not because they have enough people living there to support that voice in a general election, it is disproportionate. Fair is everyone vote, we count the votes, highest number wins, with no steps in the middle.

If you think that "only 3/5 of the non free persons (notice it still refers to them as "persons") are going to be counted towards a state's population" is the same thing as "blacks are only 3/5 of a person," you might as well go to a movie, pay 1/2 price for your child's movie ticket and complain "ARE YOU SAYING MY CHILD IS ONLY HALF A PERSON????"

(Come to think of if, when mywife and I go to a restaurant with my 2-year old and they say "table for 2 and a half" my wife gets upset. "It's like they're counting her as half a person." But it only means she needs a high chair or booster seat.)

I can suddenly think of several people who could be counted as half-a-person...

No, its not. If majority ruled, then John McCain would only have to worry about going to Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, San Francisco, etc. and saying "vote for me and I'll do what's good for Los Angeles, New York City, Miami, San Francisco, etc." and could completely ignore the people that live in Roosterpoot, Iowa. The electoral college ensures that John McCain has to be worried about Roosterpoot, IA as well, if not as much.

FYI, the Founding Fathers did not intend for "the people" to elect the President, they wanted the states to do it. (Article II, Section 1 "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:") It just so happens that each state has decided that the popular vote would decide which candidate gets that state's electoral votes. So, if you think about it, we get the best of both worlds; the electoral college (and therefore each state) decides on who will be the President, and you get your "popular vote" decides, its just that its a state-wide popular vote and not on the national level.

That "step in the middle" is really important, IMO.

There are always going to be areas of the country that don't get attention... which is usually the case during every primary season for states that aren't first in line.

Right, and I don't really have a problem with it, because we have the electoral college! (Which means they have to pay attention somewhat to Louisiana come election time. Our primary was pretty meaningless anyway. McCain already had it sowed up, and it didn't have much leverage on the DNC side.)

There are a whole bunch of states that are written off in the general as well because of the electoral map. Not to be argumentative about this; I'm just saying that there's really no perfect representational democracy.

And honestly, I wouldn't mind if elections were determined by people in large population centers anyway.

The Electoral College was never meant to include an election to begin with. It was meant to have the state governments choose the electors. You only got to choose your state government officials, who in turn chose the Congress and President.

Article 2 of the Constitution reads:


The Constitution MAKES NO MANDATE that electors must be chosen by a vote. They could in theory be appointed by the Governor or the State Senate or however the State legislature saw fit.

Right or wrong, the Presidential election was never designed to involve the people and legally does not have to.

I won't argue that point. This is true. But I'm pretty happy with the one we have.

As for your "large population centers..." THEY ALMOST DO!

The way I look at that map, Los Angeles and San Francisco gave California's votes to Al Gore, Portland gave Gore Oregon's, Seattle gave Washington to him, etc.

Given the way the USA is structured, the Electoral College makes the most sense. You just can't let the two or three most populous states in the country decide who should be President every four years. Electing the president on a direct popular vote would be a mockery of republican democracy. The EC means that the President is as beholden to someone from Rhode Island as they are to someone from California.
Is that a slap in the face to the Californian voter? No. Because even with the EC his state still has more say then Rhode Island. The EC just garuntees the people in Rhode Island (and every other state with a small population) aren't ignored/passed over/swallowed up by the will of the two or three most populous states.

Another thing about the EC....it was also meant as a stopgap against voter stupidity. The Founding Fathers were just as terrified at the prospect of the "tyranny of the mases" as they were of tyranny from the elite. In the advent the people voted for a tyrant then the electors in theory have the Constitutional authority to discard the popular votes of their states and vote for a more reasonable candidate.

Again, love it or hate it, the EC is the best system available given the way the US political system is structured.
If you STILL want to get rid of it though, you can always swear allegiance to HRM and adopt the Parliamentary system

He still would be - without the EC it wouldn't matter where the voter lived, every single citizen's voice would be as strong as every other single citizen. As it stands, the EC adds and removes value from a vote based on how many neighbors that voter has.


That's a false notion. Why should I trust the EC's choice over the will of the people? They can just as easily insert the wrong candidate into office after the American people elect the more reasonable one. *insert Bush joke here*

Well people's actions do tend to reflect the prevailing hopes and fears of their time, however baseless or warranted they may be. And the Founding Fathers were witnessing the French revolution and the reign of terror at the time. On the other hand, there were those like Jefferson and Jackson pushing for more pure democracy in spite of that.

No, if the president was elected from a direct popular vote then people who live in the more populous states, more specifically, the people who live in the large cities, would be the only ones who really matter. If you win a majority of the big city voters, you don't have to give the rest of the country a second glance.


All things considered, I would trust electors over the mob rule of the majority. Mob rule brought us such events as the French Revolution (which influenced the Founding Fathers' decision to include a guard against tyranny of the majority), the subjugation of African Americans, and the rise of Fascism and Nazism, among other atrocities.
"Men in Black" actually summed up the whole thing rather nicely; "A person is smart, people are dumb, panicky animals."
Remember, the US is not a majority rules democracy, it's a federal republic. In a true republic democracy is not just about exercising the will of the majority, it's also about protecting the minority from the will of the majority. If you allow it, the rule of the mob can be just as tyrannical as the rule of a single despot.

That's ridiculous. People in big cities don't all agree or vote the same way, and they certainly aren't teaming up to push the rest of the country around. Without the EC, a vote is a vote is a vote.

Also "will of the people" =/= "mob mentality" so the rest of your post is moot.

No, but that's all that would matter if the EC was done away with. If the EC is eliminated then I guarantee you that no candidate with a reasonable chance would stop anywhere not named New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, and maybe Houston and/or Dallas.
Big cities don't vote all one way now because there's no reason for any politician to pander to an urban-centric demographic over any other group.
If you eliminate the EC you're essentially guaranteeing that politicians will only pander to the big cities, and maybe the smaller cities within their states. There's no "big city/state voting pattern" now because of the EC. That kind of polarization will exits if you do away with the EC, however. By doing away with the EC you're assuring that politicians running for national office will only have to pander to certain segments to the population while ignoring everyone else.


Moot? Hardly.

No, will of the people is not synonymous with mob rule, but it can easily lead to it. History backs me up on this. Under even the slightest amount of stress populations, in the name of "will of the people" have elected despots or committed atrocities themselves. It doesn't take much to turn "will of the people" into mob rule. That's why the EC and other similar checks in the Constitution exist, as a stop-gape against the "will of the people" turning into the "tyranny of the majority."

The enslavement of Africans in the Americas and the subjugation that followed
The French Revolution and the Reign of Terror
The wave of terror and revolution that swept Europe in 1848
The genocide carried out against the Natives in the Americas
The rise of Fascism and Nazism and the Holocaust
The genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda
All done as the "will of the people."

Democracy is great, but like anything to much of it is dangerous. Humans are not perfect creatures, in fact they're very, very flawed. You can't assume "will of the people" won't evolve into "tyranny of the majority" without some kind of safeguard.

I'm not that concerned with doing away with the EC. On the other hand, I do think that some minorities in this country have way more representation and "protection" than they need. And I think it's been growing thanks to gerrymandering.

Dude, there are a number of things wrong this: 1) New York + Los Angeles + Chicago + Boston + San Francisco + Dallas + Houston = less than a majority of the population. A presidential candidate's still got his work cut out for him on the campaign trail without an EC if he could win every single vote in these cities. 2) No candidate could win every single vote in all these cities, or in any city, so they have to campaign to everyone in order to lick up every last vote in their favor.


Big cities don't vote all one way now because people living in big cities don't all automatically agree on the philosophical basis of how government should be run. And they never will.



Okay, maybe the big cities in Canada are all pod people in complete agreement with one another, but that's not how it works here. Individual votes would matter because individual people disagree, period. When we can't all agree, we take a vote. The position with the most supporters behind it gets carried through. Repeat every four years to ensure the system is being held accountable and positions that get carried through and are shown to have been the wrong choice, or not what the supporters thought it would be, can be remedied quickly. Simple as pie.


No, seriously. Moot. You can't guarantee that the EC will never elect a tyrant. There is no basis for why we're safer in their hands than in our own. And, no, the mere idea that they're supposed to protect us from ourselves isn't proof that they always will want to or even be able to. They're just as likely to pick the wrong candidate as the general population.

Anyone else happy that Obama has said "NO" to more debates. Not that I'm voting for him but seriously the sh!t is getting old. Can we just give this to McCain already? BTW I hope that Huckabee is chosen for VP (but would still be cool with Condi too, if she ever did chose to say yes).

Condi, IMO, is way too tainted by Bush to be seriously considered.

Huckabee is basically either pandering to the religious portion of the right or he's a crazy. His policy ideas/ideals, IMO, are way too Bush like.

1) No offence, but get the stick out of your a$$. You and I disagree. Get over it. No one's "right" when it comes to politics, it's all opinion. We have different opinions regarding this issue. We've been trying to go about this debate in a productive manner, well I have at least.
So maybe you should try arguing from the "I have my beliefs, but maybe listening to what the other side has to say may teach me something regarding the way others see this issue, even if I don't agree with them" position rather then the "I know I'm right, and everyone else is an idiot so I'll treat them as such" position.
"Okay, maybe the big cities in Canada are all pod people in complete agreement with one another...."
Way to be a condescending douche.

2) The Founding Fathers didn't intend for the combined population of the country to elect the president, they realized that it takes little for the will of the people to become a tyranny of the majority (a point you have yet to address). They saw the US as both a nation in its own right and a collection of X number of independent states joined in a federal Union.
They thought that each state, not person, should have a say in who was elected president. Each state would get a number of electors based on their population. It still gave the larger states more say, but it also means you can't ignore the smaller states.
Oh, and yes, as someone earlier pointed out, the Founding Fathers also had a lot of bad ideas (although, honestly, had they outlawed slavery from the get-go the country would have fallen apart before it got going). The bad ideas have been weeded out, though. The EC has stood the test of time and change.

3) You're right. There's no guarantee electors won't pick a tyrant. The system isn't perfect, but no system is. The point of the system is that it's easier to corrupt an entire population then it is a smaller group of people.
The theory goes that the electors of each state will vote the way their state does, so you get your "will of the people." They have the authority, however, to elect someone else if the "will of the people" elected a would-be despot. And avoid it all you like, you can't deny that plenty of evil men have been elected and plenty of evil deeds have been done as the "will of the people."

Direct Elections > Electors, IMO

But I do like representative government and stuff. If we let "the masses" vote on every single issue this country would turn into Iran within 24 hours.

That's overstating it...

Okay, it would most likely be a gradual process, but say issues like prayer in school or a law banning homosexuality were put to a simple, popular vote? Care to guess the outcome?

Which is one of (not the only reason) why I feel the EC is great (btw Sertile, I know you feel the opposite, and I'm not trying to make it seem like you agree with me, I'm just running with a good point you made).

Slavery would have gone on much longer in the States if the issue had simply been put to a vote in the 1860's. Legal segregation would arguably still be legal if it had been put to a vote.
As Sertile pointed out, prayer in public schools, the criminalization of homosexuality, and I would dare say the criminalization of abortion, would all be put into law if it were up to the "will of the people."

The US is not a real democracy, it's a republican democracy, where the people elected a small group of people (relatively speaking) to decide the issues.
A small group of people can remain level headed, while a large population can be swayed by a would-be tyrant or mob mentality (or both). Democracy, as it exists in a republic, is not simply the means by which the majority exercise their will, it's also the means by which the elected representatives of the people protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority.

EDIT-BTW, concerning my point about a politician only having to appeal to certain parts of the population if the EC were removed....Hobbes, you're right. There is no recognizable voting pattern among the more populous areas of the country. That's only the case, however, because under the EC pandering exclusively to them yields no real benefit. Remove the EC, and anyone not in California, New York, Texas, Florida, and Michigan will be looked over and ignored, as candidates would flock to pander exclusively to voters in states with larger populations.

If you're unhappy with the EC, I can see why. With the way the US is currently structured, however, I don't see any way around it. The entire basic structure of the country would have to be rearranged for the EC to be done away with.

No, we're not arguing political philosophies, we're arguing math. So someone is clearly right, and someone is clearly wrong.

See, I think that, if the Founding Fathers could look at our communications technology and our 1000% higher literacy rate than they had, they would see that the Electoral College is an outdated and archaic system. I happen to believe that, but I can't prove it in any meaningful way. It's my philosophy.

But the idea that, without the Electoral College, the nation would be beholden to the whims of people in the most populous areas anymore than they already are is mathematical nonsense which can be shown to be incorrect. If you only campaigned in the cities you mentioned, you're opponent would nab the people in those cities you couldn't sway, as well as the rest of the country, and mop the floor with you. It would take an unprecedented record low voter turnout in the rest of the country to give you that edge.


I can't address that point. It happens to be that tyrants occasionally sucker in followers and gain power. But how is the Will of the Electoral College any less likely to fall victim to that tyrant and elect him for us or alongside us (a point you have yet to address -- oh, wait, no. It's a point you concede later in your post)?


Explain how this is possible, please.

Math? Nonononono[/Shia]. Obviously people will need more voters from those in the large cities (you keep forgetting to mention that I also said most populous states. I'm saying that without the EC presidential candidates will only pander to the populous states.
A little RP might help....
Pretend for a moment that I'm an American, and that we're both running for president. I'll play the Republican, you be the Democrat. Now assume we're running after the EC has been eliminated, and all either of us need is a simple majority in a nation-wide vote.
Being the Dem, you know you have Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, Maine, Oregon, Washington, and Minnesota locked up.
I have New Hampshire, the deep south (save Florida), and the midwest locked up as the GOP candidate.
This makes New York, California, Florida, Texas, Pennsylvania, and to a smaller extent Michigan and Ohio the key states due to their large populations. If either of us can manage a majority vote in a majority of these areas we've won the election along with our "locked" regions.
Eventually the process evolves to the point where the key states are the only states that matter, each of us (or our parties) taking our "locks" for granted. The deep south, the midwest, the northern west coast, and New England already being "in the bag" for one party or the other. So the candidates just focus all their attention on the populous regions of the country, each pandering to them and ignoring the regions they have "locked."

From a mathematical point of view, yes, a candidate needs more then a majority in the populous regions to win. But from a political point of view, each party already has areas they consider "in the bag," thus the "freedom" to focus all their attention of the mass populations of voters in the populous regions of the country, leaving the voters in the "locked" regions ignored.

As for the Founding Fathers? Well you said it's your philosophy that they would consider the EC archaic if they had known about the advances human civilization has made.
Well it's my philosophy that even if they had known how society would evolve they would still stick with the EC, for the same reasons they had when they implemented it? Why? Because those reasons are pretty timeless.

During the late 1700's, when the Constitution was written, the French Revolution, acting in the name of the popular will, cast a reign of terror over France, and that influenced the inclusion of the EC.
Fast-forward to 1922. Riding on the "will of the people" Mussolini is named Prime Minister of Italy.
Fast-forward to 1933. Riding on the "will of the people" Hitler is named Chancellor of Germany.
Fast-forward to the 1990's. Genocides in the Balkans and Rwanda break out, as is the "will of the people."

Despite our technological advances and increased literacy though the ages we've remained the same basic violent, ignorant, easily lead race. Hitler could have risen to power at any point in history, if the state was in the same basic shape Germany was in during the early 1930's. And in many ways he has. At every point in human history tyrants have been able to exploit the fears and uncertainties of the population and risen to power to commit brutal atrocities in the name of popular will. It's not just "that tyrants occasionally sucker in followers and gain power." It's a frighteningly regular occurrence in the course of human history. So pardon me if I prefer some kind of check against the will of the people.

Hobbes, it's very much a philosophical argument.
Ironically it's me taking the side of Thomas Hobbes, arguing that human nature is flawed, and that if not checked those flaws will consume us. You seem to be taking the side of John Locke that human nature is essentially good, and that humans strive to be the best they can be.
While your optimism is sincerely inspiring, and I would like nothing more then to join you, I simply can't agree. History shows me that we've always been panicky, easily lead animals.

How is it possible that it's easier to fool and corrupt a population then a small group of people? Simple group dynamics, actually.
Assign two people to build a bridge, it will get done without much of a hassle. Assign ten people, it gets harder. Thirty people? Even harder. Fifty, harder still. A hundred? Hope you own a paddle boat. The same goes for politics.
The less people in a group the more individuality there is. The more willingness there is to debate the issues, to examine things from all angels. The more people in a group, the more of a mob mentality develops, leading to only two or three large "group consciousnesses," until even then those can be merged into a larger mob mentality.
If you and I were to sit down one on one and discuss politics, philosophy, etc.... we would probably be able to come to some sort of common consensus on many issues. If you were surrounded by like minded people, and I was surrounded by like minded people, however, I doubt we would ever agree on anything of significants.

Anyway, I'm not angry that you have an opinion different then mine. On the contrary, it's nice to debate with someone who's opinion differs from your own. My problem with your recent posts in this thread is the same thing that drives me away from the left (which ideologically I skew) on a daily basis; a self-righteous pig-headed attitude, the inability to even try to understand the other point of view.

Rather then approaching it as "I'm right, everyone else who disagrees is an ignorant simpleton" approach it like "hey, I disagree with you, but I could learn something from what you have to say regarding the way others think" both in action and thought. It'll help you grow ideologically, even if you don't accept a single word of what the other person is saying (and yes, I know you're quite a bit older then I am, but one's never to old to learn something new, eh?).
You have a different opinion then me, that's not what's angering me here. You coming off like your opinion is the only one that matters and mine being the equivalent of intellectual garbage? That's the problem.

Dude, your RP sounds exactly like what happens now.

In your analogy, you're still giving the candidates states they "win". With an EC, yes, if a candidate gets the most votes for him in California, he gets all 55 electoral votes that California has. He "wins" the state. The Californian minority who voted for the other candidate (as much as 49% of the population of the state) essentially have their votes tossed aside completely. Their voice isn't passed on to the national contest and added in to the count. What I'm saying is, if 51% of the people of California vote Democrat and 49% vote Republican, the Republican should get to add those to his 18% of Rhode Island, and his 60% of Texas, etc. We count all the votes and let the voice of all America's registered voters be heard.


I'm not against checks in general, but I'm against this particular kind of check. I think the Electoral College is outdated and not representative of the way the world works today and no longer needed as globalization increases. Understand that abandoning the Electoral College isn't the single change I would make to our democratic system if I had the magic to rewrite the constitution. But, as off topic as we already are, anything further is a discussion for another time.

And if you think I don't think people are "easily lead", you've clearly forgotten our religious discussions.


It's a nice analogy, but it doesn't work in this instance.

In the real world, if I want to corrupt a small group of people or a large group of people, I always pick the smallest group, so that I can charm them individually, see to it that all their needs are met, and develop a nice, comfortable, personal relationship so that I can rely on them to be there for me when I need it. The more people you've got to charm, the thinner you're stretched, and the harder it is to wrap them all around your finger.

Not that I think anything this conspiratorial goes on in the EC, but the point stands...I'd rather have a tyrant have to convince all 301,139,947 of us to put him in power than 538 elite political figures.


I think you're a cool guy, certainly smart and all that, but I don't apologize for anything I've said so far. I've yet to refer to you as a simpleton and I think you're imparting dismissal of your position where none exists. If I dismissed what you thought out of hand so easily, I wouldn't have spent all the time that I have on this discussion.

I'm only glad he said "no" to more debates because of the way ABC f*cked up the last one. And I think Huckabee would be fun to have at a children's birthday party.

This whole tangent about the Electoral College has taken us way off-topic.

Agent Zero: you are going to need to stop accusing others of insulting you while being insulting yourself, or you're going to be disallowed from participating in future discussions.

If the guy I vote for wins, then I don't care how much my vote counted. If the guy I vote for loses, then the system needs to be fixed.

pfx

And can we please cull the EC sh*t from this thread? It's not that it isn't pertinent to elections, it's just no longer pertaining to the thread title.

Which I suppose you could change.

Why debate again? You give me a question, I could answer it for both of them by now.

how about "Should I vote for you?"

as this may be relevant, there is a Birthday card from Shoebox that has a picture of a Clinton - Obama debate. Hillary's speech bubble says "I think you should have a happy birthday." Obama's says "But I think it more!"