election process

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Why doesn't it just work like this?

Each state has an election. The winner by popular vote wins. Count up voters of every state and then declare a victor. Why this weird electoral stuff? why this delegate stuff? and where did this electoral college stuff originate from?

[Banana]

Electoral college is in Constitution, IIRC.

Delegates, IMO, exemplify the Republic the best possible. Instead of dumbing to disinterested who-cares, the who-cares can just let someone they personally know to be politically active to make the decisions while they deal with their hubris.

Besides, I wouldn't advocate a particular way to do elections for two reasons. First and most importantly, it's mathematically impossible to have a fair election with more than two candidates (e.g. satisfy all different criterions such as Arrow's). Secondly, in spirit of libertarianism, we should let people decide what is the best way to cast their votes. If a particular model works well, other will emulate, while crappy models will go into the trashbins.

[JosephTheLibertarian]

Electoral college is in Constitution, IIRC.

Delegates, IMO, exemplify the Republic the best possible. Instead of dumbing to disinterested who-cares, the who-cares can just let someone they personally know to be politically active to make the decisions while they deal with their hubris.

Besides, I wouldn't advocate a particular way to do elections for two reasons. First and most importantly, it's mathematically impossible to have a fair election with more than two candidates (e.g. satisfy all different criterions such as Arrow's). Secondly, in spirit of libertarianism, we should let people decide what is the best way to cast their votes. If a particular model works well, other will emulate, while crappy models will go into the trashbins.

hmm. I think elections should be as simple and as fair as possible. The more complicated something is I believe it is increasingly more susceptible to corruption.

[Banana]

That's quite a valid point. Let's look at the other side of coin. If we made it a direct vote, we would be effectively a democracy and thus subject to tyranny of majority. I think you already know the saying about wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Thus, I view delegation as a necessary step to guarantee that each vote will be thoughtful and was cast with much consideration, while relying on Constitution to protect the rights of minority.