And I think it's a sad reflection on the false democracy of presidential elections that I would be driven to essentially throw away my vote in this manner. But it is what it is. At least this will voice my discontent, whereas voting for Obama or Stein or not voting would not enter the record in any meaningful way at all, thanks to the electoral college.

Why? Because small states will never pass an amendment to get rid of it. Simple.

The electoral college needs to go, no doubt about that. It's one of two things that keep third parties - who often have better views than the main two parties that are both stuck up with corruptness and obtuseness toward their opponents - and it's a reason for much of my bitterness about the country. Al Gore, as he would say, was "once the next President of the United States." The Electoral College took that away.

I know what Phil Davison says (if you haven't seen that video, you really should), but politics isn't winner-take-all. Richard Mourdock would say the same thing yet he is in a close race with Joe Donnelly, who constantly opens himself to Conservative ideas. The Democratic candidate for governor in Indiana is pro-life, anti-gay, and fiscally conservative. He, though, is the Democratic candidate because he fits MORE in the Democratic party and he understands that politics isn't winner-take-all. The GOP doesn't get that right now.

In short, the Electoral College promotes this attitude. I know there are other huge flaws about it - I'm not arguing those because everyone already knows it - and that there are other more important reasons to abolish it, but why should Florida, with hardly a majority, go fully to Bush? It made no sense and it still makes no sense. Gore won that election and there's no disputing the harm that Bush caused the nation both economically and in foreign policy, not to mention that the environment was completely forgotten about once Gore wasn't as big a face anymore.

The 2000 election should scare people. The people voted, the Electoral College said no. Simple as that.

yeah... thats going to work.

It is still in place because it benefits the party majorities currently in place in large states. It will eventually die but only when one party loses so many in a row they decide to rally people around a "throw all electoral votes to the winner of the popular election" campaign. This being said, a close election in a popular system would be quite angsty.

*small states

Also a recount in Florida is a hell of a lot easier to do than a recount involving the whole country. Since the date of Inauguration Day is in the Constitution itself there is much more pressure to get things over with than in, say, a parliamentary system like Belgium. You can't just switch to a popular vote and be done with it. There's a lot of work that would have to go with it and that probably even includes a re-haul of the Senate, which could require UNANIMOUS support if if alters equal state representation. Reform will just never happen.

@Invictus and Santa,

I think it is important once again to note that when a person asks a question that begins with "why" it is asking one of two things:

1) The "explanation" question - Why is it that way? What is the cause? How can we explain what led to this state of affairs? If I ask, in this way "why do I have $100 dollars?" the answer may be: "Because you were paid for ten hours' work."

2) The "justification" question - Why *ought* it be the way it is? What is this state of affairs justification for existing? In this context, "Why do I have $100?" is answered differently, perhaps by saying: "Because you worked very hard and deserve to be compensated."

I was asking for justification, not explanation. I am fully aware of the cause of why we still have the electoral college. But for what good reason ought we keep it?

I don't see why it would require an overhaul of the Senate. Why would the Senate have to be altered?

Frankly, and I mean this as an insult to our anachronistic political system, I would prefer if the House of Representatives elected the President than a winner-take-all electoral college.

As it stands, the election is decided by a few million people in a few states. The electoral college drives turnout down and creates a democracy that is no democracy. The head of state is not elected by the American people, and it's completely ridiculous.

So other than "it would be hard to change to something different," is there ANY argument for why the electoral college should be left in its present form?

We ought to keep it because it's too much trouble to get rid of. It's only been wrong three times (knock wood), and an overhaul would have the nation waste loads of time and energy when there are much more important crises to attend to. Like trillion dollar deficits, of example.

Invictus, you'd think the founding fathers that people so erroneously praise would have said the same thing about forming a nation and fighting one of the great empires in human history, too.

I think they only answered part 1, the explanation, as you can only answer part 1 of the "why" as there is no good answer for part 2 lol

Invictus:

So, to summarize your answer to this question:

"So other than "it would be hard to change to something different," is there ANY argument for why the electoral college should be left in its present form?"

You're saying no. There isn't any other reason. Okay. Glad to hear that. Just curious, do you live in a swing state?

The Senate would have to be changed because the same arguments for the unfairness of the Electoral College can be made about the Senate. Why should Wyoming get the same amount of Senators as California, if we value only the popular vote and don't see the states as legitimate popular parts of our federal system? And to change that you need every state to agree, since equal representation in the Senate is an entrenched clause. Perhaps you could create a grand compromise where small states give up their over-sized influence in the Electoral College in exchange for keeping their over-sized influence in the Senate, but that spits in the face of the popular will argument that started the push for reform in the first place! None of this will ever happen.

I like in Illinois.

"...political minorities within our states that are statistically impossible to swing are essentially left out of the entire election as much as foreigners are left out...."

<smacks self on head> Clearly you don't grasp Democracy....the idea of majority rules means, yes, by definition, statistically insignificant minorities don't have much if any influence...and thank God for that (Putin, anyone??)

and...FOREIGNERS? <sigh...> You want *foreigners* to have a say in our election process?

You, sir, are surely jesting. This can *not* be taken seriously. Either that, or you are yet another abysmal failure of the public school system...

You left-wing nutjobs really need to get a grip...

"The 2000 election should scare people. The people voted, the Electoral College said no. Simple as that. "

This one has a good chanceof doing the same, but in the Democrats favor.

I'll address some other points later, but for now I just want to point out that one can NOT assume that Gore would have won the election if the electoral college were not in place. People would have made different voting decisions all around the country. (I don't mean who to vote for -- I mean whether to vote).

^True. In non-swing states there were probably a lot on boht sides that didn't bother to get out and vote if there were no other significant ballot issues. In a popular vote where one voice *is* one vote, they would have come out.

1.) The explanation question. We have an electoral college because the founders put a number of checks and balances in our system of government. The division of powers in the federal government between executive, judicial, and legislative branches are one example. The division of powers between states and the federal government is another example, and both the senate and the electoral college are manifestations of that division of power. The power of states was severely curtailed following the War of the Rebellion, but there are still vestiges of the system in place.
2.) Justification question: Whether or not you think seperation of powers is still necessary depends on your view of whether or not you are concerned about growing centralization of power in the hands of a few. If you want seperation of powers, the electoral college is one such mechanism still in place, however imperfect it may be.

To address the "there are more important things to do" question, I would like to, at the risk of coming off as an alarmist, state why I think it is actually more important than anything else:

A state's form of government is infinitely more important than the specific policies of a government. This is because a state's policies are DETERMINED by its form of government.

So if we have an undemocratic political set-up that continues to drive voter disillusionment, misrepresentation, low turnout, and polarization, we can be expected to have serious problems in our policies.

So, whether you agree or not, I think that many of America's serious policy problems are deadlock issues. This is what I mean by that. They are either:

1) An issue that is "perfectly" polarized such that without a fairly large majority from one party, there is no change. Many social issues are like this, many environmental issues are like this too. And increasingly, thanks in my opinion partly to the electoral college, EVERY SINGLE issue is like this, because obstructionism pays in system so heavily influenced by a winner-take-all set-up.

2) An issue that is one both parties pay lip service too and never shut up about, but nothing is ever actually done. These are said to be, and often actually are, our largest problems as a nation, but are left unaddressed. Examples are the national debt and foreign oil dependence.

3) An issue that is never or rarely discussed openly by politicians but is well known to experts to be a serious problem. These problems are also often our most serious national problems, but go completely unaddressed. Examples are the poverty driving illegal immigration from Mexico, poverty and malnutrition inside the United States, Latin American foreign policy, demographic aging trends that will strain social support systems, market centralization and uncompetitiveness, gun violence, overuse of domestic resources (notably forests, fisheries, and water), weak education systems (granted there is limited lip service here). Anyway, you get the point.


These all count as "deadlock issues" because there is something that isn't going anywhere anytime soon standing in the way of our politicians fixing these problems, or at least trying to.

Often, very, very often, a major reason that the issue is politically impossible to address is because of the polarized nature of this country. Some things are "politically toxic" and are left untouched. Gun violence is a great example that is clearly linked to the electoral college. Gun violence affects mostly people who live in cities, but the rural voters who live in swing states who are sensitive to gun issues keep it from ever being discussed, thus, more people get shot.

(Keep in mind that in this context, it is not important WHAT solution is used to address these problems, what is important is that NO solutions are being proposed or implemented by our government.)

Much of this, I am arguing, is traceable in part to the electoral college system and the political climate it creates.

Let me connect it to geopolitics and the future of the American state:

Many people for much of the 20th century had already come to see the US as a democracy with a political system that is increasingly out of date. The founders created a limited federal government and in many cases intentionally created stalemates - the famous checks and balances.

And while the general themes of our methods of governance outlined in the constitution have been lauded and emulated everywhere, the specifics are increasingly anachronisms, and more and more, our political system seems to be failing.

The United States is the global hegemon, but when political issues are so deadlocked that nothing is done about our most serious responsibilities, other countries notice. We take a hit. Remember the debt ceiling fiasco? Remember our credit rating scare? These portend the future if nothing is done about our political system.

So contrary to your point that the political system is not relevant to our national problems, I contend that it is the most relevant thing of all, because it affects all the others.

The American government needs serious reform, and every political scientist I've heard say anything about it agrees. The plausibility of such desperately needed reforms is always fatalistically acknowledged to be low. Such is the nature of our gridlocked system.

If we allow ourselves to fall further and further into this deadlock, we will find our credibility eroding worldwide. In my opinion all it will take is one or two serious slip ups when America drops the ball when it was time to lead for us to be downgraded from hegemon to "very great power" or some other such. We may still be #1, but we would no longer be in a class of our own.

These arguments are not something I've come up with on my own but rather something I've increasingly come across. I used to accept the unchangeable realities of much of American politics as facts of life, but that was before I realized that some of the current states of affairs are actually serious threats to the world order and need to be dealt with. Not to mention the self-contained argument that more democracy is better than less.

@bo_sox48: but why should Florida, with hardly a majority, go fully to Bush?

Because Florida wants it to. Each state can make its own decision about how its electors are allocated. 48 states and DC are winner-takes-all. Nebraska and Maine however award an elector to the winner in each congresional district and two electors to the winner statewide.

Its academic since in every election since the rule was created, both states have been swept by a single candidate, but if every state did that, there would be quite a change.

Draug, it makes no difference. I'd vote for Obama because he, in my mind, is the better of the two, or lesser of two evils. Neither Romney nor Obama is going to do this nation good. My point is that the people's vote is what we should live on. If that means Romney would beat Obama, so be it, that's what the numbers would be.

Simply put, this isn't a political question, it's a question of how democratic we want to be. This election is hardly relevant to the overarching question of "Does the Electoral College do its job?" There are 60+ other elections to look at too, and to me, if this one does what 2000 did, it would stick out just as heavily as 2000.

"Its academic since in every election since the rule was created, both states have been swept by a single candidate,"

Not true. In '08, for example, Obama got one from Nebraska.

Yes, Zardoz, that's one of many alternatives that I think would be better than what we have. I would consider those two states wiser than the rest because they know what their people want rather than what their country wants them to think their people want.

For a third party voter like me, it's a conspiracy. Maybe others don't see it that way. Only one more thing for me to hate my country for though.

I like the electoral college. Of course I've lived in Florida my whole life so my vote is worth more than ya'lls.

Don't worry, I'll cast one for Romney on behalf of all of the webdip community.
;)

@Invictus re:Senate reform. I don't believe this would necessarily be the case. The compromise that led to the set up of the Senate is a compromise that is still relevant, namely that the small states would fight such a Senate reform. The same cannot be said of the electoral college. The reasons it was implemented are no longer relevant. It is of course true that swing states will predictably fight its removal, but this is not because it was designed to be that way. And besides, there are more non-swing states than swing states. And anyway, the electoral college is already population representative, the problem is the winner take all aspect of it, in which political minorities' votes within those states are essentially uncounted.

This means the Democrats of Oklahoma, the Republicans of California, the Republicans of the District of Columbia, and indeed the third party supporters of every state in the Union are essentially muzzled, democratically speaking.

"and...FOREIGNERS? <sigh...> You want *foreigners* to have a say in our election process?"

No, I don't. My intent was to draw attention to the fact that, in terms of influence on American elections, it is a travesty if an American citizen with suffrage has as much impact on the election as a foreigner without.

@FlemGem - please explain how the electoral college helps preserve the separation of powers. So far as I know it was implemented for two principle reasons, neither of which is attributable to the separation of powers:

1) A pre-Jacksonian notion of average people being incapable of making informed voting decisions meant the founders wanted a select group of electors to make the choice. These were the days where individual electors voted how they felt regardless of the state's results. This was left in the dust because it was an anachronism almost from the day it was implemented.

2) The logistical difficulties of a nation-wide popular vote count were so great as to render an electoral college a reasonable method of approximating such at thing without having to undertake such an endeavor.

But both of these reasons are now irrelevant, so I ask again, what, other than the fact that it would be difficult to remove, is a justification for the continued existence of the electoral college?

Chaning it would be impossible almost right now. Lots of low population states would become REALLY unimportant, and thebig population centers could get all the attention every time.

New hamphire gets visits NOW, and has 3 or 4 EVs, but go natinoal, and they are not important.

You are angry about living in Texas, and essentially your vote not counting, butthe fact is, there are others from Mass, california, etc, who are conservatives, and in the same boat. in the end, its a wash.

@bo - I agree. I was just saying it is liable to happen again. I don't like either candidate and hate to admit I am still up in the air a bit. Some recent up close and personal discussions with memebrs of the LDS has presented some additional concerns for me for Romney.

And I voted for Obama last time. Two reasons primarily. One was McCain's health care plan was even worse and would drive young people to leave their corproate plans leaving us older folks hung out to dry, and Palin simply scared the fuck out of me. I figures MCain would end up incapacitated or dead and she would take power and that was utterly intolerable.

I want those conservatives' vote to count.

To me this is not about partisan politics, it is rather about American politics.