Originally
posted by
Celeborn:
cali gets 55 electoral votes, winner gets all based on popular vote
no one eliminated anything, but your call for popular vote only would mean 3 or 4 high pop states dictate to the rest of the country what will and won't be
can't see that working out very well
Article One of the US Constitution addresses state's rights by giving every state two seats in the US Senate regardless of size.
Indirectly, you were eliminating California just by framing the vote total as a scenario in which "he wins the other 49 states together by 1m votes" and that IS thinking about the results as a number minus California.
It's valid as a thought experiment or a meme but my point was that California voters DO count, as do the voters of every other state.
My entire point is that I don't think the size of the state should matter. Two Senators per state addresses that.
In your state, when voting for governor, everyone's vote counts equally and the candidate with the most votes wins. The small counties or districts don't get their votes weighted more heavily than larger counties to 'offset large population centers'. We vote directly for the people that represent us with a one-person-one-vote most-votes-wins system everywhere in the US except when it comes to choosing our President.
I don't know why coming to this thread to discuss the future of the Electoral College elicits such hatred in some, complete with flurries of links from conspiracy websites and vulgar obscenities. I have not discussed the pros or cons of any of the candidates since coming to this thread yet that seems to be all that the manic emotional types can think about. I never stated who I voted for or even if I voted at all, but by the reaction of some you would think I voted for Charles Manson to tuck in their mama at night.
I suppose your opinion of the Electoral College might depend on whether you think of the US as a collection of states, or more like we are all a collection of one people, like our motto E pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
This isn't a new debate. Before the US Constitution was ratified there was one faction that believed we should choose a President by Congressional vote, and another faction that wanted it to be decided by one-person-one-vote popular vote results. Remember the time in which they lived - 13 states covering about 430k square miles with no electronic communications. As US territory expanded getting news and being informed on the issues was even slower and more difficult. The Pony Express didn't start delivering mail and newspapers until the 1850's.
James Madison and Alexander Hamilton came up with a compromise - the Electoral College - to appease the ratification debate. It was accepted and included in the proposed Article 2 so they could go on to other issues affecting ratification.
Also originally US Senators were chosen not by the voters, but by the state legislatures until corruption and political machines caused enough concern that only when threatened by a constitutional convention did the Senate agree to ratify the 17th amendment in 1913 giving We The People the right to elect our Senators by direct vote. It took about 70 years to get it done after first proposed.
I think the electoral college is outdated. And flawed. That's my opinion and I came here to see what others thought about it and the thread was taken over by a manic hater that thinks I'm going to look at every CT link about his intense hatred for Clinton that he throws at me. The 2016 election is over. I didn't come to this thread to discuss the merits of the candidates but he can't comprehend that.
When the Electors from each state meet in December they have the Constitutional right to ignore the results of the popular vote in their state and vote differently. In US history about 160 Electors have done just that.
They are the ones that really vote for President, our votes are little more than a suggestion backed only by tradition.
We The People won the right to directly elect our Senators in 1913.
I think it's about time we win that right for electing a President too and I hope it doesn't take 70 years.
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