Is there any plausible argument in favor of the electoral college? (user search)
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 19, 2024, 03:00:50 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Presidential Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  Presidential Election Process (Moderator: muon2)
  Is there any plausible argument in favor of the electoral college? (search mode)
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: Is there any plausible argument in favor of the electoral college?  (Read 65483 times)
Nichlemn
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,920


« on: February 23, 2013, 06:11:03 AM »

The one thing that the electoral college does is to insulate the system from State governments that effectively become single-Party dictatorships. Just imagine how a national popular vote would go if some State cast 50 million fraudulent votes for someone who ends up winning by 3 million popular votes. 

I think this argument (though pretty unlikely to occur as stated) is probably the best one in favour of the EC. That is, disparities in state election laws means that the popular vote might not be a great reflection of the popular will. Then again, there's an easy solution (standardised federal voting laws) and even then it's unlikely any disparities caused by this are larger than what is normally caused by the EC.
Logged
Nichlemn
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,920


« Reply #1 on: February 23, 2013, 06:28:08 AM »

So many of the other arguments are just terrible though, like imagining bad consequences of a popular vote when it's not as if we have like, every other election ever to get a pretty good idea of how popular vote elections work.
Logged
Nichlemn
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,920


« Reply #2 on: February 24, 2013, 05:13:24 PM »

For defenders of the Electoral College: if it's such a great system, do you think it should it be implemented elsewhere? Should states have Electoral Colleges through their counties to elect their statewide offices? Should France switch to an Electoral College for their Presidential elections? If not, why not?
Logged
Pages: [1]  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.019 seconds with 12 queries.