I don't know. I kind of like Ohio, Florida and Missouri deciding who our president should be. All the other states are simply biased.

Complex issue and one I've not made up my mind on. People want their vote to count. But at the state level v. fed level, which one is correct?

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SayUncle
Can't we all just get a long gun?

If the popular vote decides, urban America controls the election. Taking past turnouts, could a President be elected with 55% of the 20 largest metropolitan areas? Just a guess, but seems to me there would be no need for about 30 states to even vote. Those states' collective electoral votes make a difference. But, if you only look at total numbers of votes, they might be insignificant.

The electoral college solves a problem that was demonstrated in Florida in the year 2000.

What would happen if the presidential election were determined by popular vote and the national vote totals were very close? Answer: every county in America would potentially become Palm Beach County, Florida, with recounts after recounts, disputes over hanging chads, and lawsuits for months or years.

The electoral college isolates the problem to the state level. If the state totals aren't close, then small discrepancies at the county level don't matter.

I'm not sure how the Maryland proposal would affect this. Need more coffee.

The electoral college absolutely gives more power to small states, but that's a feature, not a bug. With popular elections candidates wouldn't have any reason to court voters in states with small populations, and hence no reason to represent them fairly once in power.

www.lesjones.com

* <--my point     what metulj is usually babbling about--> *

OK, I'll trade:

Give up electoral college

But let states appoint senators again

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SayUncle
Can't we all just get a long gun?

"Higher turnout would never be a bad thing."

It's not, but if the state is going heavily towards one candidate, then the state is getting the candidate it wants.

"With the electoral college, candidates currently have no reason to court voters in non-swing states."

If it's a non-swing state, that's presumably because the voters are sure one candidate represents their interests. I'm just not seeing a miscarriage of voter intent in either case.

The electoral college isn't perfect, as the 2000 election demonstrated. A candidate can win the popular vote and lose the electoral vote. But it's a less-than-perfect system that solves some other potentially huge problems. Namely, better representation of small population states and the every county as Palm Beach County problem.

www.lesjones.com

* <--my point     what metulj is usually babbling about--> *

The electoral college was set up because there was no way to directly elect a president at the time. To get votes, count and send the results to Washington was a nightmare. So people elected electors who went to Washington and elected the president.We no longer need to do this. We can have a direct popular vote now. So lets do it.

I could still make my way to California by covered wagon, but why when I can fly in 8 hours?

(I do love how wingnuts are all about majority rules until somebody points that their views are not held by the majority, or until somebody challenges the electoral college.)

Whether you are for or against the electoral college, Maryland has now made their votes essentially meaningless. Their state could vote 100% for Candidate A, and if the popular vote nationwide is for Candidate B, their vote is completely wiped out. Thus the other 49 states are really determining Maryland's choice. A change would have to be done on a Consititutional level across the board.

Craig Thomas
http://craigdthomas.blogspot.com

There was talk before the 2000 election that Gore might lose the popular vote but win the electoral vote. I'm sure if it had gone that way a lot of people would be talking out of the other sides of their mouths.

But really, in general it isn't a Democrat vs. Republican issue. I can't see any reason to think that the next time this happens it will be to Republican's benefit.

www.lesjones.com

* <--my point     what metulj is usually babbling about--> *

There was talk before the 2000 election that Gore might lose the popular vote but win the electoral vote. I'm sure if it had gone that way a lot of people would be talking out of the other sides of their mouths.

It didn't happen, so you do cannot say what would have been said. You can only assume, which makes an ass out of.... you.

I do not care about any past elections. I just would like to see the electoral college abolished.

Now, the GOP has been historically against that. However, they have been historically against everybody being able to vote in general. They are pushing to keep the EC and are behind the push to all kinds of restrictive voting laws in various states. They are behind voter databases, like Florida 2000, which disenfranchise voters illegally.

Let the people vote. Get the votes counted correctly with an auditable paper trail. Have the popular vote elect the president.

I gotta go with Rachel and GTTIM on this one. The EC needs to go away. It needs to happen for my health for I will surely explode the next time some moron calls a less than 50% popular vote total a landslide or mandate simply because they received a convincing majority of the EC.

Yea, get rid of the EC. It's the humanitarian thing to do.

CAFKIA

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It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
  - William G. McAdoo

It seems to me the purpose of the Electoral College was to humanize the election. A Presidential candidate could not be expected to acquiant himself with every citizen, so instead citizens sent representatives who could meet the candidates in person and judge their qualifications.

The winner-take-all aspect of the EC is not part of the Constitution. In fact, in 2000, there was an effort to persuade 3 electors to vote for Gore instead of Bush in deference to both the popular vote and the disenfranchised voters in Florida who were victims of Katherine Harris' illegal purge or who were forced to vote on the illegal butterfly ballot that tricked about 2,000 voters who thought they were voting for Gore into voting for Buchanan.

The winner-take-all tradition is one of the several ways political parties have weakened our democracy. Maryland's law is just another lame, ad hoc solution that avoids the real problems with this country's elections.

It seems to me the purpose of the Electoral College was to humanize the election. A Presidential candidate could not be expected to acquiant himself with every citizen, so instead citizens sent representatives who could meet the candidates in person and judge their qualifications.

Nah. It was a sop to Southern states. They were complaining that the most populous region of the country (i.e., in the northern climes) would have an unfair advantage because they'd be disproportionately represented in a presidential election. Remember the 3/5ths compromise? Similar goal. Make the south look more populous by counting each slave-human as 3/5th's of a person for census purposes, which affected apportionment of House members among states, and therefore, the number of electors.

____________________________

People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.

The winner-take-all aspect of the EC is not part of the Constitution.

Actually states dictate how their electoral votes are distributed, according to the constitution. Electors function for the state, not the federal government and are beholden to state laws concerning how they vote- pledge laws. Maine and Nebraska go by congressional district and do not distribute votes winner-take-all. Some state nominate their electors by primary and other during political conventions. Maine can allocate theirs any way they see fit and select them any way they see fit.

I think Maine is trying to turn the election back over to the people.

popular vote is against Democracy.

Nuff Said Done!

I have to agree with much of what Rikki said. I've been going to meetings, planting signs in the ground and working in campaigns for close to 20 years. Getting John Q. Public to have more than a passing interest in elections and candidates at times seems impossible. I don't know if some Americans are spoiled or just don't care.

We have let elected officials of all stripes, Democrats, Republicans and others, take over the government. There are good people in government. I've had the opportunity to help get a few elected. But, the bickering and screaming from the left and right, 24/7 'news' (which isn't really news), I don't know where it ends.

I don't know if we will ever have what a wide majority of Americans will believe is a successful President (and it's filtering down to other offices). Look at Lamar's campaign piece. At one time, Democrats and Republicans worked together. There's not enough of that anymore. What's bad for my opponent is good for me. 24/7. Elected officials, party people, spokespeople, strategists, pollsters. On some news channel, running over and over.

How do you make the case that one US citizen's vote should count less than another one's vote? As the EC stands now, this is the case.

You're conflating the Electoral College with the system of Congressional representation it mirrors. The question of whether electors should convene in person in the capital to elect a President is a different matter than deciding how many to invite.

No, I'm not, Rikki. The Great Compromise, which led to the establishment of an Electoral College, tied the number of electors to the number of representatives in the House in order to placate the representation of a number of smaller, mostly Southern states with more diffuse rural populations during the Constitutional Convention.

This was meant to affect presidential outcome as much as it was meant to affect Congressional apportionment.

As Yale law professor Akhil Reed Amar argues, the Electoral College was established as a device to boost the power of Southern states in the election of the President. The same "compromise" that gave Southern states more House members by counting slaves as three-fifths of a person for purposes of apportioning representation (while giving them none of the privileges of citizenship) gave those states Electoral College votes in proportion to their Congressional delegation. This hypocrisy enhanced the Southern states' Electoral College percentage, and as a result, Virginia slaveowners controlled the presidency for thirty-two of our first thirty-six years.

So, let's be clear: The "Southern Strategy" has been with the Republic as a political reality ever since 1789. It wasn't just something that evolved as a consequence of LBJ-era legislation.

At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the President. But in a key speech on July 19, the savvy Virginian James Madison suggested that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: "The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes."

In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the electoral college-a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech-instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall electoral college.

Virginia emerged as the big winner-the California of the Founding era-with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson's free state of Pennsylvania had ten percent more free persons than Virginia, but got twenty percent fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.

If the system's pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so.

____________________________

People getting rich. Some people saying "Markets!" More death. Neil Young. Death.

Not only is giving more power to less populous states a feature and not a bug, it's by design, not by accident.

The more I think about it, the sillier I think the Maryland idea is.

Imagine that 99.9% of Maryland voters voted for party A. In the national election totals, more people voted for party B (and let's say hypothetically their platform includes turning the entire state of Maryland into a toxic waste dump). Therefore the Maryland electors would vote for party B, completely contradicting the wishes of Maryland's voters.

That's crazy. Maryland voters would be fools to support this law.

www.lesjones.com

* <--my point     what metulj is usually babbling about--> *

If our delegates to the Electoral college were all of Randy's quality, I would considere the system. But they aren't. The EC was the best compromise in a day when it was impossible to evaluate the candidates from a distance. Today we have a much better opportunity to know each candidate. Note the word: Opportunity

Most of the electorate doesn't make choices as if they were hiring someone to take care of their business and children but they should.

Personally, I would outlaw campaign advertisements AND the Electoral College. We'd have a series of National primaries where everyone could vote via internet following a public forum in wich all candidates were asked the same questions without them having knowlege of any other candidate's answers. The questions would come from randomly chosen eigth grade civics honor students from public schools only.

It would be double elimination with last place candidate dropping out, and then on to the next forum.

Simple...Never happen.

Imagine that 99.9% of Maryland voters voted for party A. In the national election totals, more people voted for party B (and let's say hypothetically their platform includes turning the entire state of Maryland into a toxic waste dump). Therefore the Maryland electors would vote for party B, completely contradicting the wishes of Maryland's voters.

First of all, this is absurd. In most states, you'll have 51% or maybe 55% for candidate A, with the other 40-someodd percent for candidate B. With the winner take all systems that we have now in the EC, the up to 49.9% of voters in the state who voted for candidate B are being disenfranchised. This particularly stings if candidate B won the nationwide popular vote.

Secondly, have you ever met an elector? I haven't. Why should I trust that stranger over someone I've at least had a chance to get to know through a campaign, however dimly.