There's an ongoing debate about whether the Electoral College should be abolished. The argument for abolishing it is that it by doing so it would have each individual vote carry the same weight throughout the country. Those poor souls who still believe Brother Al got screwed in 2000 seem to be particularly in favor of abolishing it.
The best explanation I've ever heard of how the Electoral College works, and why it's right, is as follows.....
Imagine the Red Sox and the Padres met in the World Series. The games went this way.....
Game 1..RedSox 3.....Padres 2
Game 2..RedSox 5.....Padres 4
Game 3..RedSox 4.....Padres 3
Game 4...Padres 9....RedSox 1
Game 5 .RedSox 2.....Padres 1
Obviously the Red Sox won the Series 4 games to 1.....BUT....The Padres out scored the Red Sox in the series in total runs 19 to 15. Each game would be the equivalent of a statewide vote tally, which is the way the Electoral College works. Add the states up as they individually voted and you have a winner. But if the Series was decided as an election would be under the total vote way, the Padres would have been world champions despite only winning 1 out of 5 games. Fair??...not hardly!!
The Electoral College prevents this from happening in the national election...it assures representation to all, regardless of where they might live, or how much or how little they might depend on the government for their sustenance. Our government is NOT a democracy. It was set up to be a group of states under the umbrella of a representative Republic, and in order for it to work, the Electoral College is an absolute necessity. Without it, our government would be reduced to "government by mob rule".
Over 1/2 the voting population lives in the 20 largest cities. And most government handout $$ go to these urban areas. Imagine if politicians only had to pander to these select urban areas to win a national election....and you know the pandering would be who could promise to give away the most $$ to the most people. You think the election process is slimy now, think what it would be under those circumstances....and how fast the county would go even broker than it is now should the politicians be made to deliver all the giveaways they'd promised to buy the votes!!
In essence, the Electoral College provides that the winner must win the most games...not score the most points...to be elected president. In the here and now it seems to me it's definitely the fairer, better way.
Copy & paste to friend: (Click inside box; Ctrl + C to copy; Ctrl + V to paste)
|
|
read more blogs!
Blogs by alivenwell351:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| The Electoral College..... |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
sparechange64
|
May 16 @ 10:43PM
|
|
do not understand your blog .... Al lost the total AND the electoral
check the actual statistics
|
|
Jacksonboy
|
May 16 @ 10:45PM
|
|
I have my doubts about it being fair but if we didn't use it al gore would have been president 
|
|
hawkeye1954
|
May 16 @ 10:51PM
|
|
i think that is "one" of the turn-offs for people to vote,,,makes ya wonder why rhode island people vote at all,,local elections make each vote count the same,,
the red sox always will find a way to lose 
|
|
lacyvsq
|
May 16 @ 10:53PM
|
|
|
Nice blog! Good explanation. Those who refuse to see are those who didn't get their preference this time around. If it went the other way next time, then it would make perfect sense to them.
|
|
Paralegal_at_Law
|
May 16 @ 11:20PM
|
|
The "serious" Presidential candidates conduct a "50 State Campaign" with appearances in all 50 States.
But if we abolished the Electoral College, the presidential candidates would only make appearances in the big population states, and would totally ignore the smaller states creating a permanant class of "fly over" states where a personal appearance is "not worth it."
So California, New York, Florida, Texas, Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Illinois, would be the states where presidential candidates held their live campaigns and places like Wyoming, Kansas, Idaho, Alaska, Rhode Island would be afterthoughts both in the placement of media advertising and also in the "forget about it" collumn when it comes to personal appearances.
So abolishing the electoral college shifts 100% of the presidential campaign action and advertising budgets exclusively to where the majority of the popular votes will be cast.
The small states become insignificant locations that also only receive "lip service" constituent services from incumbents when they no longer are worth their Electoral College numbers. Candidates will make campaign promises that only benefit the big population states when it comes to federal expenditures, making small rural states into areas that pay federal taxes that do not get a proportional amount of federal expenditures in return.
And when sufficient crazies are all centrally located (San Francisco) there will be abject pandering by Clintonista-type candidates to "buy them off" with federal aid and assitance that is especially earmarked as the "payoff" for a voting turn out that benefits the "sell out" political candidates. Remember Vice President Walter Mondale offering $1,000.00 to everybody from the federal treasury if he was elected president? Those kinds of offers will be restricted exclusively to the residents of the popular vote rich "battleground states" when the Electoral College is abolished.
For instance, there are more 12 times the number of voters in New York City than are voters in the entire States of Wyoming, Idaho, Alaska, and Montanna combined. How can a presidential candidate afford to pay any attention to the small states when all of his attention is consumed in the "battleground states" that will truely count when the popular votes trump the Electoral College out of existance?
So keeping the Electoral College is the answer. That way each state counts separately and none are too insignificant to ignore.
And thats how it is in "Utopia-America." Dateline America, good night and good luck.
|
|
SweetNapaGuy
|
May 16 @ 11:39PM
|
|
@ sparechange:
You're mixing up elections. In 2000, Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote. (The Republican shenanigans were more successful than the Democratic shenanigans, combined with the blasted "butterfly ballot" that caused a liberal community in Florida to vote ultra-conservative.)
It was the 2004 election that went to Bush, both electoral and popular.
***************************
As for the Electoral College, it serves an important purpose. It provides certainty. A small popular margin is made a large electoral margin.
There are two things that make the Electoral College hinky: the "winner takes all" policy in 90% of the states, and the "winner draws the lines" in gerrymandering the districts.
"Winner takes all" specifies that 49.99999% of a state's voters might as well have stayed home. It means that there are a great many states that are taken for granted by one party or another. (E.g., California is visited only by Democrats when they need money.) There are a few minor states that split their votes proportionately, but that isn't much of a difference. Fixing it, though, would be tough: the political parties have no incentive to do so.
And the "gerrymandering" is also a problem. Yes, the Democrats were the first to do it, but with modern polling, census, and computing power, it can be taken to an extreme level. The mid-term redistricting in Texas, for instance (second in the same decade), cost the Democrats 10 seats in Congress. When a district runs along the median of a street, scooping out Republican conclaves, that's ridiculous.
Gerrymandering, like "winner takes all," serves to disenfranchise the minority party.
|
|
Monsterboy
|
May 17 @ 1:38AM
|
|
|
There are two things that make the Electoral College hinky: the "winner takes all" policy in 90% of the states, and the "winner draws the lines" in gerrymandering the districts. [QUOTE]
Agreed. Personally -- and admittedly without having made a deep study of its practical statistical effects -- I like the idea of Australian ballot, where you vote for multiple candidates by preference. With that sort of thing, factors like Ross Perot and Ralph Nader would not be the controversies they are - people could vote for Nader and still vote for Gore, for example. The biggest source of power for each party is arguably the power of monopoly -- "Here's who we give you to vote for, so do it or the other guy will win, because we'll make sure the little guys who run against us don't."
|
|
alivenwell351
|
May 17 @ 2:21AM
|
|
|
Gerrymandering, like "winner takes all," serves to disenfranchise the minority party.
Winner takes all is hardly gerrymandering....it's the way competition works...
If a minority party is "disenfranchised", probably there's a good reason it is. It would behoove such a party to try to become a majority party. If it's unable to do so, most likely it's because not enough citizens agree with whatever such a party stands for and promotes...
|
|
SweetNapaGuy
|
May 17 @ 9:14AM
|
|
|
Winner takes all is hardly gerrymandering....it's the way competition works...
I am not saying they are the same thing. I said they are part and parcel of what makes the Electoral College hinky. Although I'll admit, gerrymandering is more related to the House of Representatives than the President. Both still make voters feel they can't make a difference. As an example, when a state has 20 seats in the House, and it's possible to set up the districts so that 60% of the population ends up being represented by only 5 votes (possible by super-saturating five districts to 100% of the 60%-party, then establishing narrow majorities of 53% of the 40%-party across the other fifteen districts), that means 35% of the population (over half of the majority party, I will point out) has been disenfranchised.
If a minority party is "disenfranchised", probably there's a good reason it is. It would behoove such a party to try to become a majority party.
If a minority party (and by that, I mean 49.99999999999999999999999999% of the voters, or even 20%, or whatever) is disenfranchised, there is something seriously wrong.
Currently, the typical election draws only a small portion of the voting population. This can be, in some measure, traced to the fact that most voters--and especially young voters--feel that their vote doesn't make a difference. It also results in extremists having a magnified effect on the election.
If it's unable to do so, most likely it's because not enough citizens agree with whatever such a party stands for and promotes...
Ah, but the Electoral College doesn't do that. It's entirely possible to win a clear popular vote but lose the election. In fact, enough people CAN support a party and that party can still lose. See the 2000 election as an example: Gore won, but the Republican shenanigans (with help from some poor design) outweighed the Democratic shenanigans, so Bush was elected.
|
|
sparechange64
|
May 17 @ 11:36AM
|
|
|
sweet - only if you count the "uncountable" fla votes, and discount the "uncountable" military votes
|
|
Paralegal_at_Law
|
May 17 @ 11:52AM
|
|
Another revelation from the Master of the Obvious:
"Winner takes all" specifies that 49.99999% of a state's voters might as well have stayed home.
Duh! LOSERS are NEVER the hosts of the VICTORY PARTY.
This is so typical of the LIBERAL BALDERDASH that specifies that no one should keep score or have teams for games that are played at school and that there should not be "Winners" or "Losers" because it hurts the losers self-esteem to be defeated.
In the real world there are LOSERS and that means those who failed to prevail at the polls do not obtain public office.
After FDR, the presidential elections were as follows:
Harry S Truman won one election
Ike Eisenhower won two elections
John F. Kennedy won one election
Lyndon B. Johnson won one election
Richard M. Nixon won two elections
Jimmy Carter won one election
Ronald W. Reagan won two elections
George H.W. Bush won one election
Bill Clinton won two elections
George W. Bush won two elections
Total Results
Democrats won 6 presidential elections
Republicans won 9 presidential elections
Note: Except for Clinton, all Democrats elected President since FDR have been "one term wonders" that the electorate detested after the expiration of their one electoral college victory.
Most Republicans win two terms in the White House.
OF COURSE there is sniveling among the LOSERS about how unfair the process is that denies them power when the electorate is "on to them" and refuses to seat their candidates in the public elections!
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
|
|
|