The Electoral College

[MachineGhost]

This is the first persuasive argument I've heard for scrapping the electoral college.

Although the Philadelphia framers did not anticipate the rise of a system of national presidential parties, the 12th Amendment—proposed in 1803 and ratified a year later— was framed with such a party system in mind, in the aftermath of the election of 1800-01. In that election, two rudimentary presidential parties—Federalists led by John Adams and Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson—took shape and squared off. Jefferson ultimately prevailed, but only after an extended crisis triggered by several glitches in the Framers’ electoral machinery. In particular, Republican electors had no formal way to designate that they wanted Jefferson for president and Aaron Burr for vice president rather than vice versa. Some politicians then tried to exploit the resulting confusion.

Enter the 12th Amendment, which allowed each party to designate one candidate for president and a separate candidate for vice president. The amendment’s modifications of the electoral process transformed the Framers’ framework, enabling future presidential elections to be openly populist and partisan affairs featuring two competing tickets. It is the 12th Amendment’s Electoral College system, not the Philadelphia Framers’, that remains in place today. If the general citizenry’s lack of knowledge had been the real reason for the Electoral College, this problem was largely solved by 1800. So why wasn’t the entire Electoral College contraption scrapped at that point?

Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.

http://time.com/4558510/electoral-colle ... y-slavery/

[curlew]

I was surprised to hear Donald Trump say on 60 minutes that he might be in favor of changing the constitution to do away with the electoral college.

Right now I think it's a moot point and will stay that way until a red-state candidate loses the election while winning the popular vote. Until that happens I can't imagine 2/3 of the legislatures voting for a constitutional amendment that will give away the power they now have over the election process.

[Mountaineer]

I was surprised to hear Donald Trump say on 60 minutes that he might be in favor of changing the constitution to do away with the electoral college.

Right now I think it's a moot point and will stay that way until a red-state candidate loses the election while winning the popular vote. Until that happens I can't imagine 2/3 of the legislatures voting for a constitutional amendment that will give away the power they now have over the election process.

Agree. Only those in favor of centralized federal power would want to disband the electoral college. This article also agrees with you.

http://cnsnews.com/commentary/jarrett-s ... al-college

[MachineGhost]

The point is, the electoral system was a hack for slavery and never was part of the original makeup. Elections were never supposed to be about the states.

So don't be hypocritical just because you want your preferred political party to be in power. Scrapping it would be good for the Republican Party as they will finally have to reform and jettison the "alt right" and "religious right" zealots that hold it back from being a relevant modern party rather just than a choice of the lesser of two evils.

[Benko]

MG,

1. Forget why it was implemented this way. The result of getting rid of it will be to give huge population centers e.g. California, new York, etc etc more influence and other states less. Is that what you want or think is appropriate?

2. " "religious right" zealots "

Why are you mentioning them since that issue was irrelevant this election? Why are devoutly religious people any less entitled to their opinions than devoutly atheistic people?

[Cortopassi]

After some thought, I believe popular vote elections would be better. Sure you've got large population centers that generally vote democratic, but at the same time, you've got people like me and Pug, in Illinois, with completely wasted votes (if voting republican) because the state always goes blue.

I think it would energize both sides, republicans in blue states and democrats in red states, because they now know that their vote will actually count and get better turnouts at the polls.

[MachineGhost]

1. Forget why it was implemented this way. The result of getting rid of it will be to give huge population centers e.g. California, new York, etc etc more influence and other states less. Is that what you want or think is appropriate?

Nope, but I stand on principle not ideology. I don't change as the winds blow. I say pull the Band Aid off and get it over with.

Why are you mentioning them since that issue was irrelevant this election? Why are devoutly religious people any less entitled to their opinions than devoutly atheistic people?

Because they're still a major base of the Republican party whehter or not their "issues" come up to play during any election.

I never said they weren't entitled to their opinions (I'm all for free speech). But voicing an opinion and using coercion to force others to kowtow to their opinions is where I draw the line.

Republicans are supposed to be outbreeding the Democrats anyway, so I don't think it would be lopsided to the Democrats for too long. They're so corrupt anyway, they will sow the seeds of their own demise.

[dragoncar]

MG,

1. Forget why it was implemented this way. The result of getting rid of it will be to give huge population centers e.g. California, new York, etc etc more influence and other states less. Is that what you want or think is appropriate?

Not more influence per capita. It's ridiculous the mind hoops some conservatives will jump through to arrive at a result where it's OK to give rural citizens more influential votes.

[I Shrugged]

You cannot assume the same popular vote would have occurred if there was no electoral college. Trump would have campaigned differently. For example, he might have not worried too much about Wisconsin. And instead, he would have campaigned a lot in big, blue states.

Maybe more people would vote, too.

[Kbg]

There is so much disinformation on this subject and of course, it is all spun to reflect a certain view. If you do your own research and go to the historical documents you will find two things.

1. The issue was slavery.

2. The mechanism was a way to check the overwhelming vote count of cities which at the time meant Boston, NY and Philadelphia.

Good politicians then and now know how to count votes. The framers wanted to check the influence of large cities on national issues. Virtually all of them were deeply steeped in and read for entertainment political theory of the day. They were also practitioners of theory far in excess of any modern political science professor or talking head at Politico. The founders knew exactly what they were doing. What is interesting is that while the issues have changed greatly, the basic city vs. rural divide has remained an enduring split in American political life.

Don't confuse political issues with political process. Astute politicians understand fully the impact process can have.

A great anecdote: Robert Byrd is generally known as perhaps the biggest porkmeister in American history for his state. The unknown story. When most Senators would ditch the beyond boring meetings to figure out the specifics of an appropriations bill by leaving them to a staff member, Senator Byrd was there doing his job representing his state of WV. He is probably unparalleled in his understanding of the details of appropriations and snagged an outsized share of the bacon for the people he represented.

So back to my main point...astute politicians know what they are doing politically and the framers knew exactly what they were doing.

[WiseOne]

You cannot assume the same popular vote would have occurred if there was no electoral college. Trump would have campaigned differently. For example, he might have not worried too much about Wisconsin. And instead, he would have campaigned a lot in big, blue states.

Maybe more people would vote, too.

Correct.

Perhaps, but I do think the polls called the popular vote correctly, which is what they were designed to do. The Electoral College gives power to the 3-electoral rural states out of proportion to their population. Which may not be a bad thing. One of the ideas of having a Senate with equal representation by each state was that the rural states were worried about getting crushed by the big population centers. That potential issue was recognized during the framing of the Constitution, and it's even more of an issue today.

The all or none voting is a separate problem though. Not sure if Trump would have won if all states did the Maine and Nebraska thing and allowed electoral splits.

[Tyler]