Electoral Winner-Take-All System Hurts America
In order for someone to become president of the U.S. they need to get a majority of electoral college votes. This is fine because the electoral college almost always votes according to the percentage of state citizens who voted for a particular candidate. However, if one candidate wins 51% of the popular the winner-take-all system assigns all electoral college votes to the majority candidate.
Problems:
1. Battleground states mentality.
Because in order to get all of Ohio and Florida’s votes you only need a majority of voters. So politicians make hundreds of visits to these few battleground states and their platform are specifically to meet the needs of 51% of the Ohio and Florida residents. These battleground state voters have disproportionate amount of influence and pork going their way. The game needs to end. Each American’s vote needs to be of equal worth in a presidential election.
2. A president-elect can have less popular votes than another candidate and still win (e.g. Pres. Bush, Benjamin Harrison, etc.)
I just finished reading the federalist paper #10 attributed to James Madison where he describes the difference between a democracy and republic and explains how to minimize the effects of an oppressive majority by turning to a Republic. A republic’s elected officials should not respond to fleeting public hysteria on each issue. That is true but when picking our President for the next four years Republics still need to adhere to their constituents.
The founders worried that an uneducated electorate was the worst form of tyranny and they worked to minimize that. However today’s America has huge numbers of college graduates. It is somewhere near 40% (Please confirm.) They can think. America is no longer uneducated and completely capable of self-governance. Republics still need to adhere to their constituents.
Does the election of a president need to be reduced to electioneering and silly strategies cooked up in smoke-filled rooms? Are the voting age American people old enough to decide what President they want?
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March 5th, 2006 at 1:09 am
I’m with you man. Not only should the electoral college be done away with, I’d like to see instant runoff voting implemented as well.
March 8th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
The 2002 Census figures show that just over 27% of the adult population holds a bachelor’s degree or higher.
http://www.census.gov
I have a few questions on the issue:
1) Does it matter whether it creates battleground states? With the national media resources available to each voter, visits by the President to their specific state don’t matter. You could make the argument that there is secret, special legislation or favors passed to favor these battleground states, but can you give an example of one? Or can you show that it made a significant difference in the election?
2) Was the Electoral college only set up to protect against uneducated votes? And do you think that all Americans vote intelligently today? Or do they have a superficial understanding of the issue, and listen more to mainstream society norms? Or was the electoral college established in part to represent the smaller states, and the rural areas? If with a straight majority vote our President would be elected by the highly concentrated major metropolises (New York, L.A., etc.) whose views may not represent those of the American people at large.
3) What does it take to be a member of the electoral college? Are they required to vote according to the way the population votes, or is that a specific tenet of state law that doesn’t necessarily apply to everyone?