[url=http://chicagoist.com/2008/01/15/electoral_colle.php
]Electoral College Dropouts[/url]
Last week, both houses of the Illinois General Assembly passed a law that would enable Illinois to bypass the Electoral College in future presidential elections. The move came just before New Jersey Governor John S. Corzine signed similar legislation on Sunday that would eliminate New Jersey's participation in the Electoral College. The only other state to have passed a similar law is Maryland, which was the first state to take up the cause.
Well, I agree. However, how is that going to work if only a few states back out of it? Because the general election still relies on Electoral Votes to produce a winner.....how would their votes count?
I am against getting rid of the Electoral College. It makes the smaller states matter. Look at the so called "swing states". Oregon, Ohio, Nevada, Utah, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee...etc. If it weren't for the electoral college, how much time would the candidates spend in those states?
Yes, I remember 2000. But if you also remember had Gore carried his home state, Florida doesn't matter. If the law was upheld and ALL of the votes in Florida were recounted not just selected votes from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, it's also a non-issue.
There were many things that failed in 2000. The Electoral College wasn't one of them. If the EC goes away, I fear the divisions in this counrty will grow deeper, as a Democrat won't campaign the South and Republicans will never campaign the Northeast. It also gives small minorities a voice. If a group of say lumberjacks in Oregon can swing the whole state to one party, don't you think their concerns are more likely to be heard?
This country is not a democracy, never has been. It is a federal union of 50 states. The EC ensures that each state has a meaningful say as to who leads the union.
I understand the frustration of the left. But like I said. there were many things that failed in 2000, the EC was not one of them.
If it were the other way around and Gore had won without a plurality, would you still want to ditch the EC?
And before you attack me, I am a registered democrat.
The federal government and the states have been granted rights by the constituion. The Senate exists so that certain states and the people that live in them don't dominate the government. The EC exists for that purpose as well.
This country exists because of a minority not having a voice. If we go to a straight democracy, we go where the founders of this country wanted to avoid.
The logging industry and it's future is a very big deal in Oregon. There are a lot of people in the state concerned about the direction of the industry. Stances on the Environment, Internatioanal trade and Federal vs. states rights could swing a lot of voters to a candidate. And in a state as tight as Oregon can be, it could be the difference.
California will always matter. California voters have enacted many state laws that have spread around the country. California has been among the first states to pass laws regarding; Taxing cigarette's, banning smoking in public places, legalizing abortion, legalizing domestic partnerships for gay couples, Illegal imigration issues, internet and IT laws and state funded stem cell research.
A state with the 6th highest GDP in the world is too big to ignore.
theaquino is correct. the united states was never a true democracy. and it's worth remembering that we are a collection of states and that all of those states should matter with none being marginalized simply because of size. the founders were very savvy.
First of all, the legislation that Corzine signed, and probably similar to Maryland and Illinois, isn't a splitting of electoral votes based on how that state voted....it's legislation that would send all the electoral votes from that state to the winner of the national popular election.
It's called the National Popular Vote Movement and is patently unconstitutional. I hope the supreme court puts a quick stop to this end run around the constitution. This type of reform must be done at the federal level, but since that has failed these states are trying to circumvent the constitution.
Here's a short civics lesson for people that think the USA is a democracy and that this is a good idea.
The founders set up a federal gov't, not a national gov't. Federalism is by definition a devolving of power to the states. That's why the country is called the United States. States wanted their independence. This is called dual soverignty and the sole reason why smaller states joined the republic.
These states knew they'd get fair representation at the federal level. They also knew that with a "representative republic" there was no national vote, or "pure democracy." The founders feared democracy because it's nothing more than mob rule. The electoral college system quite frankly is genius and has worked quite well for 230 years.
If we go to a National Popular Vote it's essentially disenfranchizing the voters of the smaller states. Why would any politician even bother with states like Colorado, Oregon, etc. More people live in Chicago than those two states combined so why waste the time there. Why waste time even having states?
how can we have this discussion without also discussing the primary process ... why should New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, etc. have such a signficant impact on the early stages of the election process ... how is that either fair or healthy?
@quiz-
Because the parties have us by the throat. The only problem with the EC is that the party system has supplanted it. When you read the original intent, the writers of the constitution were trying to establish the president as an independent administrator that would work for the best interest of the nation, without having to pander to a majority. Basically, the electors were meant to be educated individuals in trust for their respective state but with no personal interest in the results (the reason why one of their two votes had to be for someone not from their state). They were to each have two votes, winner takes president, runner up takes vice president. The winner take all electoral votes are an extension of the unintended power of the parties. Your votes ensure that the elector is appointed based on their party, not on their record of trust in the state that appoints them, in fact, the party appoint the electors in most states instead of the people/state gov as originally written in the constitution.
I would like to see the EC returned to its original intent, and see the office of vice president divorced from that of the president. I would have loved to see how the administration of Bush/Gore ran the country after 2000, especially because Gore becomes the tie breaker in the senate of a nearly even session.
So I say, let's weaken the parties' stranglehold on governance and return the EC to what it should be.
Also, the populace of New York and California should not be able to declare Nevada as the nations nuclear waste dump via the federal government. It is issues like this that justify the EC and the original Senate structure for that matter.
j
excellent points joshcookie...I completely agree. The two party system is something that badly needs to go away. George Washington warned of parties when he left office. I agree and 75% of the time in past elections I've voted "3rd party" when it was on the ballot.
I am all confused now. I thought it was a good idea, then I thought it was unfair, then I thought it was a great idea, and now I think I'm back to thinking that socialism is better.
In a perfect world, all the candidates would have to visit all 50 states....it's a huge country but if you want to be in charge of it, shouldn't you at least see the whole thing? Also in a perfect world, we would have more flexibility than the 2-party system, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon, either.
Instant run-off voting/single transferable is a good way to start. More people will vote for an alternative party if their vote will be transfered to a second candidate in the case that their first choice isn't competitive.
Think of the argument you always hear to keep you from voting for anyone other than the big two. "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" for instance. What if in fact you could vote for Nader and if Nader doesn't get 15% of the vote, your vote is transfered to your second choice.
Michael Thies of UCLA's Dept. of Political Science has written extensively on electoral systems and their reform with many alternative methods of voting that are fair AND gives greater representation to un-organized, ie not affiliated with a party, voters.
j
-divide everything up into roughly 5 electoral votes per region
-small population states like nebraska would have 5 votes for the entire state
-california currently has 55 votes, so it would be divided into 11 5-vote regions
you would still have winner-take-all, but it would be much more even throughout the u.s. - less red state/blue state bull shit
we are a purple people!
i hope for change!
i have a dream!
Free Ramos - I see what you are saying...i.e. living in California you feel your vote doesn't count because the whole state is just a democrat rubber stamp. That's one of the biggest complaints of the electoral system...however I'd blame it more on the power to the two party system.
However, what you are suggesting is simply nothing more than splitting the electoral votes based on the popular election of that state. A lot of republicans have actually endorsed that plan because of states like IL for example. Chicago is a democrat stronghold, but the entire rest of the state is predominantly republican. They want something from those states where a few large urban areas lead the state.
On the other side the democrats favor the national popular election plans because they feel they can muster more total votes than the republicans. (Mostly originated after 2000, although Bush got over 50% of all votes in 2004.)
Again, it all boils down to party politics. Run-off voting and other options might quell the 2 party system some, but I still put the blame on the voters. I'm not afraid to vote 3rd party because I don't see a difference in the major parties. There is no "lesser evil" for me. They both are corrupt.
whatever happened to the person named hot dog eating champ who used to show up at random forum threads at archintect.com saying, "i can eat more hot dogs than you"
this has been argued over and over since the electoral was established and no one has come up with a better system which they can get a critical mass to support and then get implemented.
"Democracy is the worst form of Government ever attempted in the world. The only exceptions to this are all the other ones tried."- Winston Churchill.
what's wrong with counting individual votes...good ol' simple popular vote...every citizen counts equally, no matter where he/she lives; the fact that 543,816 more americans voted for Gore than Bush in 2000 doesn't seem right to me;
The electoral college and indirect appointment are more "American" than the popular vote, that is why the Constitution originally envisioned a government that was 3/4 indirectly elected/appointed and only 1/4 directly elected (the House being the only portion of the federal government established by direct popular vote).
"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up."
the problem with simply counting votes is that as founded we are less a nation than a collection of states. from that original framework, counting only individual votes would give the most populous states a clear advantage over the others.
of course, in the 231 years since 1776 the federal government has ballooned massively. whatever the ideals are or were, the reality of a single nation is very alluring ($$$) to the big business corporations that have thrived with these economies of scale. american patriotism and all of its assorted propaganda helps keep this mashin humming.
hmm...guess i'm feeling nostalgic for dear old michiganistan
That's actually a pretty good post, there joshcookie. Despite the complexities of the Elect. College, you are pretty much dead-on with the "more Amercian" description, since we're not a demcracy as some have indicated above.
Slow movement to end the electoral college underway?
[url=http://chicagoist.com/2008/01/15/electoral_colle.php
]Electoral College Dropouts[/url]
Last week, both houses of the Illinois General Assembly passed a law that would enable Illinois to bypass the Electoral College in future presidential elections. The move came just before New Jersey Governor John S. Corzine signed similar legislation on Sunday that would eliminate New Jersey's participation in the Electoral College. The only other state to have passed a similar law is Maryland, which was the first state to take up the cause.
not soon enough. nothing more undemocratic than the effing electoral college.
get rid of it
winner take all (especially in larger states such as california) is ridiculous
Seven years too late...
Well, I agree. However, how is that going to work if only a few states back out of it? Because the general election still relies on Electoral Votes to produce a winner.....how would their votes count?
the electoral votes would be split in those states to reflect the popular vote (as it should be)
Oh, well that makes sense.
Notice it is only passing in stats that have a democratic majority. So far, that means consistently more republican votes in the electoral college.
oh no, that's a reason to be against it
i thought i was for change, but i'll have to reconsider
I am against getting rid of the Electoral College. It makes the smaller states matter. Look at the so called "swing states". Oregon, Ohio, Nevada, Utah, Wisconsin, Iowa, Tennessee...etc. If it weren't for the electoral college, how much time would the candidates spend in those states?
Yes, I remember 2000. But if you also remember had Gore carried his home state, Florida doesn't matter. If the law was upheld and ALL of the votes in Florida were recounted not just selected votes from Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, it's also a non-issue.
There were many things that failed in 2000. The Electoral College wasn't one of them. If the EC goes away, I fear the divisions in this counrty will grow deeper, as a Democrat won't campaign the South and Republicans will never campaign the Northeast. It also gives small minorities a voice. If a group of say lumberjacks in Oregon can swing the whole state to one party, don't you think their concerns are more likely to be heard?
This country is not a democracy, never has been. It is a federal union of 50 states. The EC ensures that each state has a meaningful say as to who leads the union.
I understand the frustration of the left. But like I said. there were many things that failed in 2000, the EC was not one of them.
If it were the other way around and Gore had won without a plurality, would you still want to ditch the EC?
And before you attack me, I am a registered democrat.
yes, the small states shouldn't get more say than the plurality of people.
The federal government and the states have been granted rights by the constituion. The Senate exists so that certain states and the people that live in them don't dominate the government. The EC exists for that purpose as well.
This country exists because of a minority not having a voice. If we go to a straight democracy, we go where the founders of this country wanted to avoid.
sure the small states matter now
but california doesn't matter. it's a slam dunk for democrats - so neither democrats nor republicans give a shit about california.
how is that fair?
why the hell should a 'group of lumberjacks' swing a whole state?
The logging industry and it's future is a very big deal in Oregon. There are a lot of people in the state concerned about the direction of the industry. Stances on the Environment, Internatioanal trade and Federal vs. states rights could swing a lot of voters to a candidate. And in a state as tight as Oregon can be, it could be the difference.
California will always matter. California voters have enacted many state laws that have spread around the country. California has been among the first states to pass laws regarding; Taxing cigarette's, banning smoking in public places, legalizing abortion, legalizing domestic partnerships for gay couples, Illegal imigration issues, internet and IT laws and state funded stem cell research.
A state with the 6th highest GDP in the world is too big to ignore.
theaquino is correct. the united states was never a true democracy. and it's worth remembering that we are a collection of states and that all of those states should matter with none being marginalized simply because of size. the founders were very savvy.
First of all, the legislation that Corzine signed, and probably similar to Maryland and Illinois, isn't a splitting of electoral votes based on how that state voted....it's legislation that would send all the electoral votes from that state to the winner of the national popular election.
It's called the National Popular Vote Movement and is patently unconstitutional. I hope the supreme court puts a quick stop to this end run around the constitution. This type of reform must be done at the federal level, but since that has failed these states are trying to circumvent the constitution.
Here's a short civics lesson for people that think the USA is a democracy and that this is a good idea.
The founders set up a federal gov't, not a national gov't. Federalism is by definition a devolving of power to the states. That's why the country is called the United States. States wanted their independence. This is called dual soverignty and the sole reason why smaller states joined the republic.
These states knew they'd get fair representation at the federal level. They also knew that with a "representative republic" there was no national vote, or "pure democracy." The founders feared democracy because it's nothing more than mob rule. The electoral college system quite frankly is genius and has worked quite well for 230 years.
If we go to a National Popular Vote it's essentially disenfranchizing the voters of the smaller states. Why would any politician even bother with states like Colorado, Oregon, etc. More people live in Chicago than those two states combined so why waste the time there. Why waste time even having states?
how can we have this discussion without also discussing the primary process ... why should New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, etc. have such a signficant impact on the early stages of the election process ... how is that either fair or healthy?
@quiz-
Because the parties have us by the throat. The only problem with the EC is that the party system has supplanted it. When you read the original intent, the writers of the constitution were trying to establish the president as an independent administrator that would work for the best interest of the nation, without having to pander to a majority. Basically, the electors were meant to be educated individuals in trust for their respective state but with no personal interest in the results (the reason why one of their two votes had to be for someone not from their state). They were to each have two votes, winner takes president, runner up takes vice president. The winner take all electoral votes are an extension of the unintended power of the parties. Your votes ensure that the elector is appointed based on their party, not on their record of trust in the state that appoints them, in fact, the party appoint the electors in most states instead of the people/state gov as originally written in the constitution.
I would like to see the EC returned to its original intent, and see the office of vice president divorced from that of the president. I would have loved to see how the administration of Bush/Gore ran the country after 2000, especially because Gore becomes the tie breaker in the senate of a nearly even session.
So I say, let's weaken the parties' stranglehold on governance and return the EC to what it should be.
Also, the populace of New York and California should not be able to declare Nevada as the nations nuclear waste dump via the federal government. It is issues like this that justify the EC and the original Senate structure for that matter.
j
excellent points joshcookie...I completely agree. The two party system is something that badly needs to go away. George Washington warned of parties when he left office. I agree and 75% of the time in past elections I've voted "3rd party" when it was on the ballot.
Thank you guys, I was begining to think I was the only one who sees the validity of the EC.
I am all confused now. I thought it was a good idea, then I thought it was unfair, then I thought it was a great idea, and now I think I'm back to thinking that socialism is better.
In a perfect world, all the candidates would have to visit all 50 states....it's a huge country but if you want to be in charge of it, shouldn't you at least see the whole thing? Also in a perfect world, we would have more flexibility than the 2-party system, but that's probably not going to happen any time soon, either.
Well, how would you go about wiping out the party system?
Instant run-off voting/single transferable is a good way to start. More people will vote for an alternative party if their vote will be transfered to a second candidate in the case that their first choice isn't competitive.
Think of the argument you always hear to keep you from voting for anyone other than the big two. "A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush" for instance. What if in fact you could vote for Nader and if Nader doesn't get 15% of the vote, your vote is transfered to your second choice.
Michael Thies of UCLA's Dept. of Political Science has written extensively on electoral systems and their reform with many alternative methods of voting that are fair AND gives greater representation to un-organized, ie not affiliated with a party, voters.
j
how about this fix for the electoral collage:
-divide everything up into roughly 5 electoral votes per region
-small population states like nebraska would have 5 votes for the entire state
-california currently has 55 votes, so it would be divided into 11 5-vote regions
you would still have winner-take-all, but it would be much more even throughout the u.s. - less red state/blue state bull shit
we are a purple people!
i hope for change!
i have a dream!
Free Ramos - I see what you are saying...i.e. living in California you feel your vote doesn't count because the whole state is just a democrat rubber stamp. That's one of the biggest complaints of the electoral system...however I'd blame it more on the power to the two party system.
However, what you are suggesting is simply nothing more than splitting the electoral votes based on the popular election of that state. A lot of republicans have actually endorsed that plan because of states like IL for example. Chicago is a democrat stronghold, but the entire rest of the state is predominantly republican. They want something from those states where a few large urban areas lead the state.
On the other side the democrats favor the national popular election plans because they feel they can muster more total votes than the republicans. (Mostly originated after 2000, although Bush got over 50% of all votes in 2004.)
Again, it all boils down to party politics. Run-off voting and other options might quell the 2 party system some, but I still put the blame on the voters. I'm not afraid to vote 3rd party because I don't see a difference in the major parties. There is no "lesser evil" for me. They both are corrupt.
I've come to the conclusion that the only true way to settle these elections is rock, paper scissors tournaments
How about American Gladiators competitions?
Would it be the whole thing though? I think powerball and assault would be the best events.
What about midget tossing? or wife/husband carrying? maybe those are too european.
How about the most American of events? Hot dog eating contest
whatever happened to the person named hot dog eating champ who used to show up at random forum threads at archintect.com saying, "i can eat more hot dogs than you"
this has been argued over and over since the electoral was established and no one has come up with a better system which they can get a critical mass to support and then get implemented.
"Democracy is the worst form of Government ever attempted in the world. The only exceptions to this are all the other ones tried."- Winston Churchill.
Puddles: This might substitute for the Hot Dog feller -
NADER! I THINK I VOTED FOR NADER!!!
Assassinate Nader & the Electoral College, they're both Un-American.
what's wrong with counting individual votes...good ol' simple popular vote...every citizen counts equally, no matter where he/she lives; the fact that 543,816 more americans voted for Gore than Bush in 2000 doesn't seem right to me;
The electoral college and indirect appointment are more "American" than the popular vote, that is why the Constitution originally envisioned a government that was 3/4 indirectly elected/appointed and only 1/4 directly elected (the House being the only portion of the federal government established by direct popular vote).
"Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up."
-- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
the problem with simply counting votes is that as founded we are less a nation than a collection of states. from that original framework, counting only individual votes would give the most populous states a clear advantage over the others.
of course, in the 231 years since 1776 the federal government has ballooned massively. whatever the ideals are or were, the reality of a single nation is very alluring ($$$) to the big business corporations that have thrived with these economies of scale. american patriotism and all of its assorted propaganda helps keep this mashin humming.
hmm...guess i'm feeling nostalgic for dear old michiganistan
That's actually a pretty good post, there joshcookie. Despite the complexities of the Elect. College, you are pretty much dead-on with the "more Amercian" description, since we're not a demcracy as some have indicated above.
you guys need proprtional representation - the system where it takes a week to figure out who won
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