Big Brother is watching you..

[Ilander]

The electoral college is not valid for the modern "United" States...really, it isn't...too many times, 50.0000001% gets rounded to 100% as far as it goes...if the electoral college could still split its vote (can they still do that? In several elections in the 1800s, not every member voted the way the majority did in his state, and i figure that more accurately represented the results) then I would be happy...

Overall, though, let's face it, people...two party systems are hopelessly obsolete when taking modern people into account...they're bound to just get more and more and more deadlocked....

Oh, and back to the original topic...I'm DEFINITELY in favor of the fall election being overseen...and yes, I'm a pinko-liberal communist...

[Magness]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I agree Thoran -- the problem in 2000 was simple: the margin of victory was smaller than the margin of error. I'd propose something other than a coin toss to solve the problem, of course. Maybe have the candidates arm wrestle or play jeopardy. We wouldn't have had this problem without the electoral college.

Well, here's a surprise. I also agree that the problem was that the result in FLA was inside the margin of error.

Frankly, I don't think that it's really possible to eliminate this. Oh, we can certainly do our best to use better voting processes, etc., etc. But there will always be some level of error in any human process. And this does not account for any corruption, like voting in the graveyard dictricts, or hiding the ballot boxes from precincts that vote heavily one way or the other, etc., etc.

[Magness]

It's immensely amusing? annoying? to see the lack of knowledge that people have regarding the Electoral College.

Let's start with some basic knowledge.

Article II, Section 1, clause 2: 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: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The state legislatures decide how each states' electors are chosen.


The following link is an OUTSTANDING web page about the history of the Electoral College in excruciating detail. If you are interested in the history of the EC, it is well worth the investment in time to read the entire article.

An historical analysis of the Electoral College

A few highlights from the article. (It's too long to post the article here.)

1. The all or nothing EC process did not really become the standard practice until the 1836 election. Many differing schemes were used before then. Remember that the Constitution says that electors are assigned "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct". And those state legislatures had a lot of different schemes for such assignments. (Note: If you read the entire article, the term "General Ticket" was an early term for all or nothing assignment of electors.)

2. A point of historical trivia. The 12th Amendment to the Constitution which detailed some additional Electoral College procedures, had an initial draft that included the assignment of Electors by "electoral districts", i.e. congressional districts, but this was stricken from the final version of the 12th amendment.


This really is an outstanding article on the EC. It's not really pro or con. It's a historical account of the EC, its founding, and its various changes throughout the years. If you are into political history, this is a must read.

[Magness]

Originally posted by Thoran: I understand your point TL and agree with it, there are a lot of voters who's votes don't have an impact on the election at all (mine is often the case as I said), but without the electoral college cities like New York and LA would have even more influence. You'd end up with a situation where the megacities along both coasts would have either enormous or decisive control over elections. Certainly the E.C. isn't an optimum solution, but it was designed in a day when there weren't a lot of options (even popular vote would've been tough back then). It sounds to me that an acceptable solution you might envision would perhaps apply the delegates of a state in proportion to the states vote as opposed to all or nothing. This sort of scheme I think would probably work even better than the current scheme, I'm not an expert on the E.C. so I'm not sure why it was designed as an all or nothing thing... but I'd certainly support that. What I don't think is a good idea is a straight 1:1 popular vote.

Thoran,

a couple of points.

1. Maine and Nebraska both assign their electors by congressional district, and the 2 "senatorial" electorals being given to the winner of the entire state.

2. While assigning electors by congressional districts sounds good, there is a MASSIVE problem with it. States by their very nature have borders that are unchanging. Congressional district borders change with every census. And they are changed by each states' legislature to the benefit of the party that controls the legislature. It's a process called "gerrymandering". Ever heard of it?

This would make assignment of electors MASSIVELY political. State legislatures could and WOULD draw up borders to benefit the majority party of each state. At least with winner take all, there's no gerrymandering state borders to play with election results.

I oppose this method for this reason.