Electoral College Debate

THe little guy...
The Electoral College forces the winning candidate to demonstrate both a sufficient popular support to govern as well as a sufficient distribution of that support to govern.

If all the people in large cities like a guy then he wins regardless of what the people in the little communities feel. Ideas spread fast when people are packed together. Such as San Francisco...the idea of liberalism spreads easily because the populous is so dense. Their population is concentrated and in large numbers.

The electoral college also makes for a stronger minority voice using the same theory I stated above.

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Hey, welcome cleandrinkingwater. That's the cleanest explanation I have yet to see. I think the allocation of electoral votes (though not the college, per se) was set up to avoid what Jefferson called 'the tyranny of the majority."

If I wasn't clear, I meant to say - stick around cleandrinkingwater.

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That pretty much sums up the argument. I might also add (though I don't like the system myself) that an argument could also be made for the electoral college helps maintain a voice for land, if you will: states like Iowa and the Dakotas might be overrepresented if you look at population, but the system affords them some ability to influence how their land is governed. It's not an argument I've ever seen put forward -- at least not on those terms -- but it is frankly the most compelling reason I can think of to retain the electoral college.

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I personally like the system. It keeps the system honest by making the politicians work hard in the "fly over" states as they do in the big cities.

The electoral college was founded so that states like the Dakota's would have a voice in the election process.

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Hello and welcome Cleardrinkingwater.

I can see both the sides of the arguments on this one, so I'm kind of on the fence. I realize that majority rule breeds minority oppression, and that the E.C. helps to counter-balance this by representing those areas with less voters more fairly, but the current system seems to have less and less to do with the will of the people every year.

Is there any way to modify the system?

Cycloptichorn

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Only through an act of congress and a vote by the people. Another reason for the EC is that the framers of it thought that the general voter was not smart enough to make an informed decision and this left them a way out. I find that it is becoming more and more the case these days where voters don't make a decision based on anything other than what they had for breakfast that morning.

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Yet voters have more, and better, information about the world than they ever have had. One would think that this would lead to a larger understanding, and therefore a more informed choice, but like you, I don't neccessarily see that being the case.

It is rather puzzling :/

Cycloptichorn

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Some bits about choice (from an article by Barry Schwartz in the Chronicle of Higher Ecucation in January):

Quote:

Shoppers who confront a display of 30 jams or varieties of gourmet chocolate are less likely to purchase any than when they encounter a display of six.

Students given 30 topics from which to choose to write an extra-credit essay are less likely to write one than those given six. And if they do write one, it tends to be of lower quality.

The majority of medical patients do not want the decision authority that the canons of medical ethics have thrust upon them. Responsibility for medical decisions looks better to people in prospect than in actuality: Sixty-five percent of respondents say that if they were to get cancer, they would want to be in charge of treatment decisions, but among those who actually have cancer, only 12 percent want that control and responsibility.

The more funds employers offer their employees in 401(k) retirement plans, the less likely the employees are to invest in any, even though in many cases, failing to do so costs them employer-matching funds of up to several thousand dollars a year.

When maximizers, as opposed to satisficers, go shopping for big items or small ones, they spend more time looking, have a harder time deciding, look around more at what others are buying, and are less satisfied with their purchases.

Maximizing college seniors send out more résumés, investigate more different fields, go on more job interviews, and get better, higher-paying jobs than satisficers. But they are less satisfied with the jobs, and are much more stressed, anxious, frustrated, and unhappy with the process.

More options/information doesn't necessarily lead to a better-informed choice, or to any choice at all...

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I remember during the 1992 election, I sent off for Clinton's information packet 2 months before the election because I wanted to know more about the person that I was planning on voting for (yes I was once a liberal.) I received it 2 weeks after the election. I now wish I would have voted the other way, but hey, I was young and stupid.

Oh and the rest of you can blame me for his first term in office. I corrected that mistake by the next election.

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And here I was thinking it was Perot...

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Thanks for the nice coments roger. fanbrian...i'm glad you changed your ways.

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Well like some one once said - If you aren't a liberal by the time you are 20 you have no heart, and if you aren't conservative by the time you are 30 you have no brain.

I guess I was like the Scarecrow in the wizard of Oz. I finally received my brain.

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In the dream, he received a brain. In the dream. Wink

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They also say you can afford to be liberal at age 20. You haven't acquired anything worth conserving.

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I'll second that. When I was 20 I didn't have a pot to urinate in. Now I have a house, 2 cars lots of other things that many liberals would rather I didn't.

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You know, it's funny you should mention that. When I was 20, I had a lot of things most conservatives would rather I didn't.

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Okay, now I'm curious, how many of you who gave me arguments in support of the college, actually support the college themselves? I'd read quite a few arguments before I started this thread, but none of them seem legitimate to me. Where does everyone stand on the legitimacy of the arguments?

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Well it seems that if one person is more popular they should win...I can see that and almost agree with it. But its just not fair...the only reason this topic sparks so much interest right now is because of what happened in 2000. People years later are still mad and the college system is still important for the reasons I already stated. Yes I can say the popular vote is interesting but just not a good sample of the population.

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cleandrinkingwater wrote:

But its just not fair...

Why? Just because it doesn't give inordinate power to rural areas that are usually of the political affiliation that you share?

---------------

I think the EC is really silly and is a way to give the least progressive (in every sense of the word, not just politics) people an inordinate share of the collective voice.

There is a reason conservatives favor it at a higher rate than do liberals and it's because it tends to benefits them more easily than liberals.

One person, one vote. "Tyranny of the majority" is a complaint against the fundaments of democracy.

"Tyranny of the majority"? That's the very idea!

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Electoral College Debate

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