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Electoral College System
As some of you know I am not from the USA, and the first time I heard about the electoral college system, I was kind of confused. Now, after some years later, I understand it a lot better. From what I know from my high school history class it came down to that the parents of this nation where afraid that people would elect a person without the proper knowledge of how to run a country and then send it to ruins. Enough to say that they were not down with that after all the battles they went through.
So I after reading some articles in digg, I wonder, what do you guys think if the USA decided to not use the Electoral College System for a future election?
Comments
If we remove the electoral college and have a popular vote, only people who live in cities will have political power. Candidates will only campaign in areas which are densely populated, completely ignoring places like Wyoming. This also means that once in power, candidates will change policy to make people who live in densely populated areas happier while neglecting the wants and needs of everyone else.
Personally I wouldn't mind so much if this happened, because it would be of great advantage to myself. However, I think that such a change would be hypocritical considering the principles that our nation was founded on. It would be majority rules without majority rights. It would be a tyranny of the major cities over the rest of the country. As much as it would help me, it goes against everything this country supposedly stands for.
The founding fathers understood this. They weren't stupid when they made the electoral college, they made it for a reason. Just because some people on teh Internets don't understand those reasons, doesn't mean a popular vote suddenly becomes a good idea.
Our founding fathers wanted power over the Federal Government to be in the hands of the states. They wanted local governments to have power over the Federal Government. Often times people seem to have forgotten this. State governments matter.
This is a good and fair thing and I personally would be upset if it changed.
And regardless of where the majority of the people live they are still the majority and thus the majority is being kept happy while the outliers are either oblivious or an angry mob.
I'm not so sure about the "Majority rules, without Majority rights" statement though. I think what you're really trying to say there is Majority rules, while ignoring Minority rights. Afterall, as you say the densely populated areas represent the majority and they'll be perfectly fine. The rednecks out in the middle of nowhere are the one's in the minority in this situation and they'd be getting shafted.
Then again, why do I need to see a candidate IN PERSON in order to find out what they are promoting? And my state senators are still going to have to campaign in my state and rally to my causes.
So the electoral college, in my opinion, is outmoded as far as electing the president is concerned.
Do you know why a few states are real pissed about some of the bigger states moving up their primaries? It is because they know that if the big states go first no one will give a rats ass about their state.
Also, why would a big state such as California (winner take all electoral votes) want to lose the power they have with all of those votes? The system helps both large and small states. The only states that suffer are those that split the electoral vote along the lines of the popular vote, those states are just plain misguided.
How do you guys feel about that?
I'm personally in favor of every state doing this- most of my life I've lived in heavily Republican states and would really like my vote to actually contribute. But at the same time, I'm a bit torn- its only being proposed in California, which just ends up hurting my party for the time being.
The bigger problem with the EC and our voting system at large is that it is pass-fail. The majority might only have a one-percent margin advantage, but still gets a lock on all of the representation.
Take Ohio, for instance. The 2004 presidential vote was something on the order of 52-48 percent in favor of Bush. That means that only slightly more than half of all residents are actually represented, while slightly less than half are simply ignored.
Another way to do it is to have a generic election in which, with the same voting numbers, 52 percent of the executive branch must then be represented by Republicans and 48 percent must be represented by Democrats.
I think, however, that this alternative system would only increase gridlock. Maybe that's for the best. But I know it certainly didn't work with our early executive branches, where Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr were respectively president and vice president belonging to different parties.
However, in a time of such low technology, local community was very big. You knew everyone in your town, and you knew them well. The idea of the electoral college was that every area selects a person to send to Washington to decide. It was never intended that you would pick a president and then pick an elector who thought the same as you. It was intended that the district would pick the best person they knew, and that person would go to Washington and decide, along with the other electors, who to pick.
Now, I'm not saying we should do things the way they were in the olden times. Things have changed, and many with good reason. However, allowing states to split up their electoral votes, and allowing electors to vote as they please, is closer to the original intended functionality of the college. Actually, forcing all of a states electors to vote according to the choice of the state's citizens makes it so the college does not solve all the problems it was originally designed to eliminate.
I'm not so sure the electoral college is the perfect system for the US today, especially not in its current or original forms. However, it is still vastly preferable to a popular vote.
Apparently 7 hours ago was too early for my brain to be functioning. The Electoral College is a bunch of bullshit, and hardly preferable to a popular/majority vote. What is wrong with a majority vote?
Claim 1: Candidates won't campaign in my state.
Response: So? Does that prevent you from learning about their platform in someway, no, so why is this a problem?
Claim 2: Majority doesn't take everyone into account.
Response: That's not true at all. The redneck hillbilly voting for Bush because he's a God fearing man and doesn't approve of abortion gets to have his vote count just as much as my lazy ass doesn't really give a shit, voted for who I figured would do a better job based on my limited information vote.
Claim 3: Small states get a bigger say with the Electoral college.
Response: Government of the people, for the people, by the people. I don't see State in there anywhere. Besides, who makes up the state? People! And as were talking about the president here, why do we care if a state gets a say? We want the PEOPLE to get a say...all of the people...not half the people from Ohio and 75% of the people from Illinois and so forth and so on...
Ultimately a popular vote would help remove some of the power from the state and federal governments and put it back in the hands of the people. A somewhat terrifying thought? Maybe...but isn't that what the country was founded on? This statement applies more to the electoral college as it stands now. If it were a popular vote it wouldnt be only the people in the dense areas, it would be the majority that would be made happy. After all, there are people that would be part of the majority that live out in the middle of no where, just like there would be people living in the cities that are not part of the majority. Where the "majority" lives has nothing to do with what the majority votes for. You might be able to claim that education does and that better educated people generally live in the city but that is a broad generalization that shouldn't be extrapolated into the majority vote.
Let's take California as an example. They currently have the most electoral votes in the system, I think it is around 54 (if not higher I'm guesstimating here). Because they do not split their electoral votes based on the popular vote a candidate need only get 51% of the California vote to get all of its electoral votes.
This gives California a huge amount of influence in the political process. What California wants it pretty much gets.
Now, if it were to allow for splitting of that electoral vote pie it would lose massive amounts of political influence because the campaigns would not bother catering to California. Why would they not cater? Because the reward would be far lower. Why bust your ass campaigning in a state if you are only going to get about half of the electoral votes (or the popular vote) from that state?
Why would California be as powerful as it is now? The number of electoral votes they get is based on the number of Congressional representatives they have, which is based on their population. Their population is not going to change suddenly if the electoral college goes away. That means that California will still be just as important as it is now because it has a larger population.
The only thing dumping the electoral college would really do would be to give the power of presidential election to the masses where it belongs. Everything else would more or less remain the same. The bay area in California would be important, Chicago would be important, New York would be important and a few other large cities, the rest of the country may as well not exist now or later really. Once again a state is made up of people, why is it so bad to actually let the people have a say? The state governments shouldn't have the final say in the vote for the President, the president is the person in charge of the entire country, let the entire country have the say.
Right now the system is such that over half the majority vote can just be tossed out completely. Look at the Gore vs. Bush election...If you were a republican in say...Illinois...then your vote pretty much counted for nothing. If you were a democrat living in Texas your vote counted for nothing there. It's just a bunch of bullshit.
I have not expressed a personal opinion for or against the issue, I'm just pointing out the reality of the issue.
As for bringing up the Gore vs. Bush election. You can not make the relevancy argument because the voters voted under the electoral system. When you are in a heavy blue (or red) state the minority party tends to have a lower turnout because they know their vote will not count. If all of the Republicans in California thought their vote would count do you think they would have voted and given Bush a popular vote win? Same goes for Democrats in Texas.
This is the core problem of the electoral system when a state has "winner take all"
Example:
20 electoral votes split over ten states:
State A: 2 million people and 2 EV
State B: 2 million people and 2 EV
State C: 2 million people and 2 EV
State
State E: 2 million people and 2 EV
State F: 2 million people and 2 EV
State G: 2 million people and 2 EV
State H: 2 million people and 2 EV
State I: 2 million people and 2 EV
State J: 2 million people and 2 EV
Total: 20 million people and 20 Electoral Votes. Sounds fair enough, right? What about the following:
40 electoral votes split over ten states:
State A: 2 million people and 2 EV
State B: 2 million people and 2 EV
State C: 2 million people and 2 EV
State
State E: 2 million people and 2 EV
State F: 2 million people and 2 EV
State G: 2 million people and 2 EV
State H: 2 million people and 2 EV
State I: 2 million people and 2 EV
State J: 22 million people and 22 EV
Total: 40 million people and 40 Electoral Votes. If State J splits their electoral vote based on popular vote everything works out fine. If they do "winner takes all" then no one will care about the other 9 states because their votes do not count. In this scenario a loser could get 28 million votes and lose to someone who got 12 million votes in state J.
Leave your state for a day and introduce yourself to someone you didn't meet in high school. It could be a mind-expanding experience for you. Let's face it, thanks to technology and the ever shrinking world, we become less and less different from people farther away geographically. This means that, chances are, there are a lot of people living in very different places from you that are pretty similar to you . . . if less close minded.
and after listening to so many people in the last 7 years living in the USA, I will say that:
I guess that when the USA was created there were less than 20 states and most of them were on the atlantic ocean, and most people were not properly educated. So I can see a reason why the fathers of this nation decided to go for the Electoral College System, it really worked. When I learned about that I thought to myself " Why didn't Simon Bolibar and San Martin thought of that? " , " maybe if that would have being instituted my country would have had being less shitty presidents elected.
I believe that this system worked and it will be not necessary when the voters become well educated and instead of thinking of themselves they would see a greater picture and think what is good for the nation as a whole. I am saying this because my country gets their presidents through popular vote and sometimes we get this (basically she got elected because she promised to give her first salary to poor people) as a congress woman, or we get a president that after its term either flee of the country taking a bunch of money. Yeah it has happened three times in arrow.
Now, what it really scares me if the electoral college system is abolish is what if there is enough dumb people in the USA to elect another Bush?
P.S. In Peru, and I guess in every country in which popular vote is used, therer is a fee of at least 150 soles ( 50 $ )for not voting.
And to counter your close-minded argument:
EDIT: I had a whole big tirade here and then realized I was just adding my indignations to yours.
I've been around, seen a few things and I'll leave it at that.
4 states have signed it into law - 50 votes
Illinois (21)
New Jersey (15)
Maryland (10)
Hawaii (4)
Passed by one house - 36 electoral votes
Washington (11)
Colorado (9)
Oregon (7)
Arkansas (6)
Vermont (3)
Passed by at least one house in past - 112 electoral votes
California (55, vetoed by governor)
Michigan (17, not voted on by senate)
North Carolina (15, not voted on by house)
Massachusetts (12, not sent to governor)
New Mexico (5, not voted on by senate)
Maine (4, not voted on by house)
Rhode Island (4, vetoed by governor)
As a side note, I know we can't expect all politicians to be science experts, or copyright law experts, or technology experts, but I think we CAN expect them all to be politics experts. So who would vote for this?
I just realized that these are state congressmen, not national, so they might not have as high expertosity. But still, come on!