09-10-02, 07:00 PM Lighteningrodd The founding fathers were a very perceptive bunch. Obviously they could see the handwriting on the wall of events to come.
The Electorial College will always be a part of our Presidential Election process. It would take a change in the Constitution to change to the popular vote or even another system. However it is not going to happen.
It is the smaller states that benefit by having the Electorial College. If we elected the President by popular vote, the most highly populated areas of the country would get the candidates attention. The states with the smaller population would for the most part, be ignored.
Another thing the founding fathers could see was the emergence of political power brokers in highly populated areas. The power brokers in these areas know how to finangle their voting areas for their candidates. It is not uncommon to hear about large quantities of "phantom votes" being cast.
The Electorial College is a tool that is supposed to help the smaller populated states counteract these disadvantages. And since the smaller populated states would have to vote in favor to pass a Constitutional Amendment to change the Presidential Election process, that is why such a proposal would never fly.
Two thirds of the states would never give this up. They would be foolish to do so. Then they would be ignored come Presidential Election time.
09-11-02, 05:54 PM crescen7 In addition to the already posted correct answers, might I add that it would be almost impossible to hold a "general popular election" in a closely contested race. It's not uncommon for the margin of victory in the popular vote to be less than 1%. This could make last years "Florida debacle" look mild if we started having national recounts.
Truth is, because of our "winner take all" system, many votes are never counted at all. In the last Presidential election, in California, more than a million overseas ballots were never opened. That's because Gore already had about a 3 million vote lead - so why bother. This happens a lot - but it works because the outcome of the election is still valid. If we used a pure popular system - we'd be counting for a month - and recounting for a year - and we'd still argue over the outcome.
Those founding fathers were very smart people.
09-11-02, 06:51 PM displacedNYer
quote:Those founding fathers were very smart people.
Definately. In more ways than we recognize.
This message has been edited. Last edited by: DorianGreyed,
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