Which we should only undertake with copious reflection and great reluctance. It’s not a light thing. I’d rather leave it alone, except that the EC just hasn’t done a good job of reflecting the will of the people. IMO.

The same thing could be said of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

Imagine, you guys. You vote for the Constitution Party, and if they don’t win, your vote goes to the next party you choose, and perhaps the next and the next. Talk about making a statement with your vote!

Plus more people might actually vote for third parties if it’s not a ‘wasted vote’, which means third parties will have a stronger presence, and may be able to pick up election funds.

I mean, Electroral College. Pfft. Someone invented it. It wasn’t revealed or anything. (Though I’m sure you can find something in the Journal of Discourses to suggest that it was.)

“It is noteworthy in passing that the idea of electing the president by direct popular vote was not widely promoted as an alternative to redesigning the Electoral College. This may be because the physical and demographic circumstances of the country had not changed that much in a dozen or so years. Or it may be because the excesses of the recent French revolution (and its fairly rapid degeneration into dictatorship) had given the populists some pause to reflect on the wisdom of too direct a democracy.”

You have heard the phrase “tyranny of the majority”?

The Founding Fathers never intended the President to be such a powerful figure.

Well, if the Congress would just stop its tendency to roll over and die every time the Executive Branch announce its edicts that will make the whole world A Better Place, maybe the Presidency wouldn’t be so powerful. Having it take back its responsibility to declare war, instead of forfeiting the right to the Executive branch, would be a good start.

I think anyone who wants the candidate with fewer votes to win is much more hostile to liberty. Let everyone’s vote count equally.

Yeah I say we get rid of the Senate too.

– John

I’m for getting rid of the EC as well. It’s definitely outlived it’s utility.

I think anyone who wants the candidate with fewer votes to win is much more hostile to liberty. Let everyone’s vote count equally.

Dan — you mentioned burying the EC six feet under, but you forgot overlaying it with concrete.

I remember standing on a main road leading to a voting booth back in the 70’s holding a sign that read, “A vote for the lesser of two evils is still a vote for evil!” And yes I voted for a third party candidate that election. Did my vote get me the end result that I wanted? NO, it did not. Did my vote count? ABSOLUTELY! You see, if you do everything in your power to combat evil, then like the prophets of old, your hands will be clean, guiltless, free from of the blood and sins of the leaders. On the other hand, if you vote for evil you will have to make an accounting for the actions of the leaders that you sustained by your vote.

Well, just remember there are a whole bunch of Republican voters in California who feel just as frustrated as you do, since California is known to be pretty safe territory for Democrats when it comes to the Electoral College.

I stupidly voted for Bush in the 2000 election, but thankfully (in retrospect) the Democrats of this state made sure that my vote for Bush counted for nothing back then, God bless ‘em.

(Of course, it was those red states, like Utah, who ended up negating the California vote against Bush in the end.)

This Wikipedia table shows the population of the United States, per state, along with the Electoral College votes per state, and the mathematical breakout of the number of voters per Electoral College vote. In Utah, for example, the population is shown as 2,550,063, and it has 5 EC votes to cast. California’s population is shown as 36,457,549 (which is roughly 14.3 times the population of Utah), but it only gets 55 EC votes (11 times as many as Utah). This enables the smaller states to pool their votes and defeat a candidate who may appeal to the voters only in the large population centers on the coasts.

If you want to make sure that the East and West coast populations of the US get to dictate the results of Presidential elections from now on, by all means, let’s do away with the Electoral College. Since the states with the larger populations are generally more Democratic than Republican (I am right about that, right?), I would think that the Republicans are the last people who would be in favor of elimination of the Electoral College.

The Founding Fathers seemed to think a bi-cameral legislature was a pretty good idea, and the Electoral College system goes right along with it, numbers-wise.

Kill the electoral college, and you’ll never see a candidate campaign in less-populated areas again.

How many times do you see candidates fly to Rhode Island, to Wyoming, to Utah, to Alaska, to Hawai’i? This is one of the supposed good reasons to keep the electoral college, but alas, it is not correct.

The reason candidates visit one place over another is because one place is a “battleground” while another is “safe territory.” Ironically, if we make every single vote count, each candidate will actually have to vie for ALL the votes, not just the ones in key battleground regions.

Voters in Massachusetts will rarely see a Republican candidate for president stop by for a visit, because financially, it is a waste of that candidate’s money; Massachusetts electoral college delegates will inevitably go to the Democratic candidate. The same for Utah. Why should a Democratic candidate go waste his money in that state, when it clearly will end up going to the Republican candidate?

However, if every single vote counts, those few Democratic votes in Utah might make just the difference in the national election.

Ha! I wondered if Dan were out there! And he was. Sometimes I don’t appreciate his comments, sometimes I do. Perhaps Dan feels a little like I do today.

HA! yes, I am here. We’re not going to agree on everything, and we’re not going to disagree on everything. I like this personally.

I can honestly understand the voter apathy in the face of the Electoral College! Why make the effort when the Electoral College just negates my vote anyway!

That right there is one of the strongest reasons to stuff electoral college in a coffin, dig a pit six feet deep and lay it to rest forever.

So you favor a democracy over a republic?

Most definitely! Any day of the week. Frankly what I would like to see is a proportional representation system to truly reflect what the populace believes. But that’s just me.

I have yet to see a candidate campaign in Utah yet, so what difference might it make to me?

Um, there’s more to this issue than just you. You might not be affected, but many others would. And the fact is, who cares about a silent majority in a small town, when you really need to be campaigning in the big towns?

I have yet to see a candidate campaign in Utah yet, so what difference might it make to me? Seems to me that if we went to majority vote, the candidates might actually for once be concerned about all those silent majority types in small-town America.

Connor,

Does the difference in whether we have an electoral college or not make the difference whether we are a republic or a democracy? Are we a government “by, for, and of the people?” Are all people created equal? Should my vote not then actually count for something? Or should my vote be just for my own personal satifaction to just make me THINK that my government is by, for and of my opinion, but is over-ridden anyway by the powers that be?

Under a republic, small land-owners and women do not even have the right to vote. That is why we amended that small problem.

Kill the electoral college, and you’ll never see a candidate campaign in less-populated areas again.