Electoral College

[JOEBIALEK]

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the Electoral College as a result of a compromise for the presidential election process. During the debate, some delegates felt that a direct popular election would lead to the election of each state's favorite son and none would emerge with sufficient popular majority to govern the country. Other delegates felt that giving Congress the power to select the president would deny the people their right to choose. After all, the people voted for their representatives to the federal legislature. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.

Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the Census).

Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State.

The debate has started again as to whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended in order to change the presidential election process. Some promote eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote for president while others believe the Electoral College should remain unchanged. Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem. The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state. This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count. A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence. Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected. For example, in Alabama, President Bush won 63% of the popular vote and therefore would be awarded 5.67 electoral points as compared to Senator Kerry with 37% of the popular vote and 3.33 electoral points. In the event of a tie, the national popular vote results would decide the outcome.

If one tabulated the final totals from Election 2004, they would find Bush with 274.92 electoral points versus Kerry with 257.71. The existing electoral college votes shows Bush 286 to Kerry 252. I believe this compromise would reflect a truer intent of the will of the people as exercised through their states. This would also prevent the smaller "red" and "blue" states from being virtually ignored in favor of the larger "battleground" states.

[TNRighty]

Bad idea.

You're moving toward the "one man, one vote" mindset...the Democracy mindset. This country is not a democracy, its a Republic. This country was not founded on principles of majority rule, it was founded on the principle of the rule of LAW. Our Founding Fathers feared democracy in its purest form. That's why they came here, and thats why they gave us the Electoral College.

They believed there were three extremes that tended to tyranny: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. Democracy was considered by most of the Founders the worst form of all.

Madison noted in Federalist 10, "Democracies have always been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have ever been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."

Hamilton noted at the Constitutional Convention that "the fate of Republican government" hinges upon "due stability." Democracies were not stable: "If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy."

The Electoral College vote is fairer to all citizens than popular election for several reasons. For instance, it's more conducive to have the candidates campaign more equitably throughout the country – in rural areas as well as urban centers, smaller states as well as larger states – because not doing so may result in the candidates' loss of an entire state and its electoral votes, rather than just losing small clusters of votes.

You can’t have one group, or a few large states with a few large cities, calling all the shots. And when you think about it, I really don’t believe any of us think places like New York City and L.A. ought to be empowered to tell all the rest of us how we must live.

Last time around, Al Gore won the popular vote by capturing the vote of a few big states and a few big cities, but lost the election because George W. Bush by far had the majority of the states, the majority of the counties, the majority of the geographic land mass in his favor, and so won the Electoral College vote, and thus the election.

Our Founders gave us a representative government, enshrined in a Constitutional Republic that has been resilient, enduring and tested. Let us not discard a sacred document that has served us well for over 200 years.