Electoral College
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  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Presidential Election Process (Moderator: muon2)
  Electoral College
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Author Topic: Electoral College  (Read 1459 times)
JOEBIALEK
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« on: January 10, 2005, 06:34:11 PM »

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the Electoral College as a result of a compromise for the presidential election process. During the debate, some delegates felt that a direct popular election would lead to the election of each state's favorite son and none would emerge with sufficient popular majority to govern the country.   Other delegates felt that giving Congress the power to select the president would deny the people their right to choose.  After all, the people voted for their representatives to the federal legislature.  The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.
 
Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the Census).
 
Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State.
 
The debate has started again as to whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended in order to change the presidential election process.  Some promote eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote for president while others believe the Electoral College should remain unchanged.  Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem.  The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state.  This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count.  A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence.  Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected.   For example, in Alabama, President Bush won 63% of the popular vote and therefore would be awarded 5.67 electoral points as compared to Senator Kerry with 37% of the popular vote and 3.33 electoral points.   In the event of a tie, the national popular vote results would decide the outcome.
 
If one tabulated the final totals from Election 2004, they would find Bush with 274.92 electoral points versus Kerry with 257.71.  The existing electoral college votes shows Bush 286 to Kerry 252.  I believe this compromise would reflect a truer intent of the will of the people as exercised through their states.  This would also prevent the smaller "red" and "blue" states from being virtually ignored in favor of the larger "battleground" states.
 
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The Man From G.O.P.
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« Reply #1 on: January 10, 2005, 07:05:42 PM »

The fact of the matter is that this would fix nothing, an introduction of this system simply means more people in massachusetts and new york make sure to go out and put there democrat way over the top while in utah and texas more go to the polls to make sure there republican wins, while the system would probably increase turnout the points awarded in each state would be proportional to what would happen had they not
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J. J.
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« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2005, 07:13:10 PM »

I wouldn't object to electoral votes were given by congressional district, with 2 votes awarded to the winner of each state.
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A18
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« Reply #3 on: January 10, 2005, 07:16:13 PM »

I like the winner-take-all method. CDs would also be fine. The one thing I hate is proportional representation.
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Blerpiez
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« Reply #4 on: January 10, 2005, 07:27:01 PM »

This would make it possible for a candidate to win by getting a few "points" in most states and having a large support base in a few states, so I would object to this.  I currently favor the present system, but I wouldn't mind the Maine-Nebraska system if CD's were not gerrymandered. 
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Alcon
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« Reply #5 on: January 10, 2005, 07:47:46 PM »

I wouldn't mind if we stopped giving two for senators. It gives Wyoming a weird advantage over California, for instance.

I'd support getting rid of the system if it wasn't for the fact that I love maps.
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muon2
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« Reply #6 on: January 11, 2005, 01:17:13 AM »

I wouldn't object to electoral votes were given by congressional district, with 2 votes awarded to the winner of each state.
I would be much more comfortable with this if Federal law required that CD boundaries follow appropriate political subdivisions (eg. towns and townships). The power to gerrymander would extend to presidential elections in a way that is not currently present (except in ME and NE).
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JOEBIALEK
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« Reply #7 on: January 11, 2005, 06:08:37 PM »

good points
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