Abolish the College Electoral

[Iwantchange]

I think this has been running under the radar, and we need to get it out to America!

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/04/10/schneider.electoral/index.html

[angelatc]

No. If we abolish the electoral college, only 3 states will decide who gets to be PResident.

DIrect Deocracy, ie: majority rule, is tyranny. Think 3 foxes and a chicken making dinner plans.

A much better plan would be to repeal the 17th Amendent. That would give the power of the Senate back to the States.

[mosquitobite]

I don't think banishing the electoral college is the necessary change.

I think a better solution is a simple rotation of first primaries.

(ie instead of it always being Iowa & NH first, rotate them) Someone suggested "regions" and every 4 years the regions rotate with who goes first.


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When you think about it, 4 elections in 200+ years where the electoral college won over popular vote - it's not really that much.

And being from a smaller, midwestern state, I think I'll take the electoral college over California & New York determining our President every 4 years ;)

And I agree with the PP - get rid of the 17th amendment

[MikeStanart]

I dunno about this.

[Redcard]

A better choice is to have the Congress directly elect the president, and move us into more of a parlimentary system.

Otherwise, like was said, just three states choose the president.

[Paul10]

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[MJfromCT]

Electoral College = Republic
I choose to live in a republic

Rotating primaries via regions or some other orderly process makes the most sense.

[Redcard]

That's how it works with the nomination. I don't really care either way. The most influential part of the election is ignorant people.


You're right.

It's not 3.. it's 11.

Just 11 states.

[Eponym_mi]

NO! Without the Electoral College, the power of the individual States would be greatly reduced.

[Paul10]

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[aymn27]

Electoral College = Republic
I choose to live in a republic

Rotating primaries via regions or some other orderly process makes the most sense.
I concur!

[Paul10]

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[mosquitobite]

That's dumb. It just isn't a fair game. How about making it illegal for polling companies to come out with those stupid results showing who's "winning" and having all the states go at once?

The idea for early primaries is to keep the amount of money needed to run to a minimum.

You think the $$$$ in elections is bad now, make it a 50 state primary at once! :eek: Only millionaires could attempt it.

That's why rotating states/regions would work.

[PhilA]

You think the $$$$ in elections is bad now, make it a 50 state primary at once! :eek: Only millionaires could attempt it.

That's why rotating states/regions would work.

Only millionaires can attempt it now.

[Iwantchange]

So you would rather have the states have the power instead of the popular vote having the power? As in the case of Florida where Gore had more votes but the state went with Bush?

[demolama]

I'm so glad the people's vote in NJ and MD mean so little to their state governments that they are willing to give up their voice in the presidential elections.

There is nothing undemocratic about the electoral college... it's a democratic election held within the state you reside. The person who democratically wins within a state gets the electoral votes. What's undemocratic about it? Cities like NY and LA will easily have more say in the election since they contain more people in them than the lowest populated states in the USA if we were to rid ourselves of the Electoral system.

This means instead of candidates pandering for votes in rural areas like Iowa, Nebraska, etc. You'll be left with candidates visiting NY city and other more populated urban areas. You have to remember that NY city alone has more people in it than the 5 lowest populated states. So basically you are saying that the people of Rhode Island's needs do not matter at all.

The next question arises is it even Constitutional for states to join a compact with other states without the approval of the Congress? Article 1 section 10 clause 3 "No state shall, without the consent of Congress, ..., enter into any agreement or compact with another state" Doesn't MD and NJ break this clause when it tries to enter into a compact with each other to give their electoral votes to the national total?

The founders set up a system of government around the concept of federalism and representation. The electoral college was set up to represent the states in the election of the President so that the state of RI could have some weight in the election so that the President doesn't owe his allegiance to a certain state or ( in this case with the eradication of the Electoral College) to urban areas. You don't see Presidents only campaigning in California, Texas, or NY do you even though they get the most electoral college votes? No you see them fighting in states with smaller totals like OH and FL. States have meaning in the current system and no big populated areas have full control over the rest of the nation... so again I ask what is broken and why are people so willing to toss it aside?

I don't understand why people are so willing to destroy federalism for this notion of a majority rule vote. We've already started to destroy it when we allowed the US senate to be chosen by the people making them a 6 year long super House of Representatives. Now your state governments have zero say in the the goings on in the Federal government and that's why the Federal government can constantly pass unfunded mandates onto the states; like this Real ID crap, which helps to cause state deficits and promotes their inabilities to actually help the people within their own states. This basically reduces the powers of the states to mere administrative bodies for the Federal government with no true powers except those that the Federal Government doesn't want to handle.

We also destroyed the people's representation when we allowed the Congress to limit the amount of Representatives in the House to 435. In some cases 1 Representative can have within their district up to 700k people. How can you serve your constituency with that amount of people. The chances of them all having close to the same values is slim. This is why the House can pass crap and not care about their districts. When the Constitution was created it was expected that the House was the "people's house" and should remain large. Expectations were that per 1 representative would represent about 30-60k people. The first amendment to the proposed Bill of Rights drafted by Madison explicitly made it clear this was the intent.

The people's willingness to destroy what made the American Federal system work boggles my mind. First it was the 17th Amendment in 1913 then it was the 1929 limit of Congressional seats to 435 and now its the destruction of the Electoral College. So now for 95 years we started to promote nationalism instead of federalism in an attempt to destroy the very thing that worked for America for the first 124 of the life of the Constitution. Congrats NJ and MD for destroying what made America different than England.

[biersal]

Angelatc is right on one front...the damage caused by the 17th amendment has been huge...there is a great law review article on it. There is a direct correlation between its passage and the growth of the federal govt.

I tried to have a federalist society debate on the topic at my law school (some schools it’s a libertarian group at others it’s a very conservative group), but there were no law professors they knew of (through the national org, or at my law school) who wanted to debate it.

As for the primaries….maybe there will be some new leadership for the Republican party that will rethink their primary system (if they lose the election several times in a row, and believe that the primary format is not selecting the best candidate)…but until that happens this is what we have.

[Todd]

Horrible idea. People need to understand why this is a "Republic". This system keeps the 4 largest states from ruling us all.

[JMann]

So you would rather have the states have the power instead of the popular vote having the power? As in the case of Florida where Gore had more votes but the state went with Bush?

What count are you using that shows Algore had more votes? Would that be the 65th recount done by some media outlet. Every total I've seen Bush had more votes except it seems like I may of saw some report a year after the election that Gore may of had a handful more.

If Gore had more votes in Florida then Gore would of won the state. Hell yes I would rather have the electoral college. It would be an absolute disaster for the country to have the presidential race not narrowed down to only a handful of states but rather a handful of cities.

[Paul10]

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[SovereignMN]

The Electoral College is one of the few threads keeping this republic together. NEVER abandon State Sovereignty!

[demolama]

A better choice is to have the Congress directly elect the president, and move us into more of a parlimentary system.

Otherwise, like was said, just three states choose the president.

this was discussed at the Federal Convention and was shot down believing that the President would be willing to work for the needs of the Congress and not for the needs of his office. You have to remember the Articles of Confederation had a quasi-president that rotated within the unicameral legislature... the seperation of the executive and legislature was crutial.

The same was debated on the state legislatures alone picking the President. They felt the President would be loyal to the states that picked him thus being bias towards those perticular states.

And well a direct democratic election was out because of federalism and because of the different needs of southern and northern interest at the time as well as difference between rural and urban needs.

So the electoral college was born and created unbias electors who would be a check on the election so that the "wrong" person would not get elected. At least that was the idea... The problem ran into the fact that no one conceived of political parties and their impact on the electoral college. The 12th amendment helped to address the vp and president from different parties working against eachother

It did leave the states open to how they wanted to allocate their electors. When George Washington was elected many of the states did not hold elections and instead the state legislatures picked the electors... it wasn't until around Jackson did all states go to a voter picking electors system.

The best solution to the Electoral College having perticular states being "spoiler" states where the election boils down to that 1 state is to reject the law that limited the House of Represenatives to 435. By increasing the size of the House to its intended size the increase of electoral votes would also increase thus making it much harder for 1 state to be the battle state.

[JMann]

If there's no scientific polls, no one knows who is winning. That's a good step. The only person that came out of nowhere was Huck this round because of evangelists. Also, who would get to decide which primaries get paired up? How was NH and IA (Iowa is poor though) bad? NH was suppose to be one of Paul's best states. Paul lost miserably because people are ignorant. It can't be fixed. The only way is not letting some people vote. lol If 50 states go at once, it'll represent all of the states. As for only millionaires doing it only, you forgot that the media is what puts the most money in the system by far.

Maybe he didn't lose in New Hampshire because people are ignorant, maybe it was due to running a terrible campaign.

[Paul10]

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[nbhadja]

Maybe he didn't lose in New Hampshire because people are ignorant, maybe it was due to running a terrible campaign.

No they were IGNORANT. Anyone with half a brain could see that Ron Paul is the best candidate.

[FreeTraveler]

Are the same people who are trying to change the election scheme because they know better the same ones that keep telling HQ how to do their jobs?

[mosquitobite]

Are the same people who are trying to change the election scheme because they know better the same ones that keep telling HQ how to do their jobs?

LOL!

[UtahApocalypse]

It should be a reality TV series "American President 2008" They would have a weekly debate and then have phone polling, and web voting. The lowest person is eliminated. After 16 weeks only two are left and they have a huge debate followed by live voting. We would so own this :D

/sarcasm

Seriously, it may not work the best at all times and may need some changes but our system is what defines us as a Republic not a Democracy.

[jblosser]

You're exaggerating too. Show me where 3 states decide each election with past results (going by popular vote). I can easily prove that false.

You can prove it false because we DON'T just go by popular vote today, forcing the candidates to go among various states. Imagine what it would look like if only the popular vote decided things. No states but the most populous would see any campaigning, and steps would be taken to improve their voter turnout to the levels needed.

[Original_Intent]

No. If we abolish the electoral college, only 3 states will decide who gets to be PResident.

DIrect Deocracy, ie: majority rule, is tyranny. Think 3 foxes and a chicken making dinner plans.

A much better plan would be to repeal the 17th Amendent. That would give the power of the Senate back to the States.

YES!

[Eponym_mi]

So you would rather have the states have the power instead of the popular vote having the power? As in the case of Florida where Gore had more votes but the state went with Bush?

The national popular vote is very misleading. In some states the dominance of a particular party makes voting a waste of time, so, people in the minority party are grossly under represented in those states. This skews the aggregate popular vote. Nevermind the influence of turnout related to local races. For example, a highly contested governor's race.

[bucfish]

Elimanting the Electoral College would give power to the Big States and leave the smaller ones without a voice that is the reason it was put in place!!!

[RonPaulMania]

I'm actually in favor of a stronger electoral college with a stronger midwest presence than now exists. There is too much strength in about 8 cities of this country that basically make or break the election. The mid-west states should have more say as they are big argo and manufacturing people who actually make product for the country rather than consume.