A revolt against the Electoral College?

rtalman

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http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-01-03-nj-electoral_N.htm

Maryland has passed, and New Jersey is close to passing, a law that would award their electoral college votes for president to the candidate that wins the nationwide popular vote. Neither state's law would be enacted unless enough other states to effectively kill the electoral college join them in passing the same laws.

Several other states are considering jumping on the bandwagon.

The Constitution is vague about the mechanism a state legislature must use to choose electors, so it is possible...
 
rtalman said:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/2008-01-03-nj-electoral_N.htm

Maryland has passed, and New Jersey is close to passing, a law that would award their electoral college votes for president to the candidate that wins the nationwide popular vote. Neither state's law would be enacted unless enough other states to effectively kill the electoral college join them in passing the same laws.

Several other states are considering jumping on the bandwagon.

The Constitution is vague about the mechanism a state legislature must use to choose electors, so it is possible...
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It's a bad idea. It would make all small states inconsequential forever.
 
Not really.

Imagine an election where the candidates campaign on the coasts, and parts of the Gulf Coast.

What need would a candidate ever have to go to a place like Montana? or Idaho?
 
TriskettheKid said:
Not really.

Imagine an election where the candidates campaign on the coasts, and parts of the Gulf Coast.

What need would a candidate ever have to go to a place like Montana? or Idaho?
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And how many visits do you expect to those places during the general election campaign? The candidates will concentrate on the battleground states and states where they can fill their campaign coffers.
 
rtalman said:
And how many visits do you expect to those places during the general election campaign? The candidates will concentrate on the battleground states and states where they can fill their campaign coffers.
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At least they'll visit.
 
TriskettheKid said:
At least they'll visit.
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That's just something I can't get my mind around... Shouldn't a voter choose a candidate by the policies and philosophies in evidence?

What difference should it make if a candidate pops into Helena, MT or Rapid City, SD and says "Hi"?

In Iowa, Rudy got very few votes (supposedly) because he didn't spend enough time there. Are Iowans so shallow that they reject a candidate because he didn't sit down in a coffee shop in Des Moines and chat up the locals? Did Huckabee visiting the Iowa State Fair make his Fair Tax scheme that much more palatable?
 
rtalman said:
The Constitution is vague about the mechanism a state legislature must use to choose electors, so it is possible...
Click to expand...

Technically they could decide however they want be it a coin flip or drawing straws and it would be legal.

While there is no constitutional right to vote for president, if I were a resident of those states I would be upset that the electoral votes could be assigned opposite of what the majority of the state voted for.

I personally would prefer to see states move away from the "winner takes all" stance that most states use, perhaps something like the system Maine and Nebraska use.
 
It's a perception thing.

If voters in the state think you care about them enough to visit, they'll vote for you.

Is it shallow? In some ways, yes. In others, no.

But there are reasons why we do not decide via a direct vote.
 
Skibum said:
I personally would prefer to see states move away from the "winner takes all" stance that most states use, perhaps something like the system Maine and Nebraska use.
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I would be interested to see an analysis to see if any past electoral outcomes would have changed by moving to that model nationwide.
 
rtalman said:
I would be interested to see an analysis to see if any past electoral outcomes would have changed by moving to that model nationwide.
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Easy enough to check.

I know for a fact that Andrew Jackson would have defeated John Quincy Adams in the 1824 election.
 
TriskettheKid said:
It's a perception thing.

If voters in the state think you care about them enough to visit, they'll vote for you.

Is it shallow? In some ways, yes. In others, no.
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It's more than that. They don't just visit. They also address local issues and answer questions from locals. It's much easier to decide who to vote for when you can ask them their position on issues that are important to you and your neighbors. What do we know of Guilani's position on agricultural policies? Why would an Iowa farmer vote for him without knowing, when other candidates have told them where they stand?
 
Ah, the quadrennial (?) electoral college thread!

I'll recap my previous positions for easy access:

1. Most arguments against the electoral college are also arguments against the Senate. Whether that's a pro or con depends on the individual.

2. The people already have directly elected representatives in the form of their U.S. Representatives and, in latter days, Senators. That check is well in place; it deserves a balance in the form of State (as opposed to individual) representation. The Republic is founded on the notion that those elected by the people to govern are more fit to make high-level decisions; I see no reason why this idea should not, to a certain extent, be applied to national politics as well. This doesn't really happen of course, since all states base their electoral votes on the popular vote in one way or another, but I still support preserving the framework in case things change in the future.

3. I would love to see electoral votes handled via instant-runoff voting or some other less-strategic voting system. Okay, that's not specifically related to the electoral college, but hey, I'll talk about it any chance I get.
 
rtalman said:
I would be interested to see an analysis to see if any past electoral outcomes would have changed by moving to that model nationwide.
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If every state adopted this system then every electoral college vote would go to the one candidate who scored the most votes nationwide.

Didn't Bush lose the nationwide vote in 2000? If so, he would have had 0 electoral college votes under this system.

Trying to determine what the outcome of previous elections would have been, had this system been in place, is difficult as the popular vote would have been different. I think people in non-swing states would have been more likely to vote (as their vote is more likely to count) and the campaign in swing states would have been different (as they would be less important).

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the popular vote tally is disputed.
 
rtalman said:
The Constitution is vague about the mechanism a state legislature must use to choose electors, so it is possible...
Click to expand...
It says "in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct". I don't think that's vague.

It is an interesting idea. Sure, there are reasons why we don't directly elect Presidents, but we also didn't originally elect Senators for much the same reasons. We abandoned that practice a long time ago, and perhaps it is time to abandon the electoral college, as well.

However, if so, I think we should cut the institution from the Constitution, not simply paralyze it.
 
Dude, the founder's had no idea what to do for electing the president. So just a few days before they finished the Constitution, they tacked on an idea that they had already rejected, the electoral college. And then they left up how it would actually work to the States.

I think it is bullcrap.

It means that depending on where you live, the power of your vote changes. This is because the number of electors is based on the number of representatives, and the number of Senators is the same for each State regardless of population.

But then again, I also am against the existence of the Senate :p .

My PoliSci teacher told me that it is actually harmful to most small states. This is because there is a lopsided amount of Dems vs. Reps in each State, so many are left so uncompetitive that the parties just fly over them as safe States.

[/rant]
 
The president represents the 50 states of the union. Maryland and NJ have failed basic civics.
 
New Ager said:
It's a bad idea. It would make all small states inconsequential forever.
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A person is a person. For the most part, if you can appeal to liberal voters in California, you appeal to liberal voters in Wyoming; if you appeal to conservative voters in Texas, you appeal to conservative voters in Vermont. Additionally, the way states have been formed is largely a matter of convenience and an accident of history. What if North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana had formed one big Superdakota and California had decided to break up into four different states? Federalism is valuable, but both the federal government and state governments are Republics, and therefore exist solely to serve the people who live in them. Why should one servant treat people differently based on which other servant they have?

Furthermore, brute majority rule can definitely be a bad thing and it is entirely reasonable for the electoral system to be built in such a way to require consensus, but to simply give more votes to some people based on what state they state does not remedy it: it just turns majority rule into sometimes-a-majority-and-sometimes-a-minority-rule, with no reason to believe that sometimes-a-minority is more representative of the overall "common good" than a simple majority would be.
 
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fuelair said:
No offense, but in what I like to call a democracy (one person, one vote) that makes sense.:)
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It only makes sense if you assume the small states concerns are directly at odds with the large states'. They aren't.
 
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