Abolish US Electoral College?

[Nubclear]

A lot of people say that the electoral college should be abolished, because it ultimately fails at its attempt to "recognize the little guys".

They're arguement is that if a small group of people gets a candidate 30 percent of the vote, and the rest goes for Candidate B then ever single vote goes for candidate B. Or if Candidate A got 49.99 percent of the votes, and Candidate B got 51.01 percent of the votes, all votes go to B. Even if its a high number like 50, all of them go for B.

I haven't heard a really good counter arguement. So, someone please try to convince me that we should not abolish the electoral college.

[KrazyHorse]

I think that electoral college votes should be normalised to a state's population instead of the current weird-assed configuration.

Also, IIRC, there are two states who don't have a winner-takes all rule for electoral representatives.

[notyoueither]

I think you've gone mad on the Demo game Tass.

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by notyoueither
I think you've gone mad on the Demo game Tass.

Thanks, but I already knew that.

[Ethelred]

I think two presidents being elected by the Electoral process when they came in second on the popular vote is a good enough reason to deep six it. The original idea supporting it is out of date, assuming it ever was in date in the first place. There is no way some party crony knows what I want or need for president better than I do and its party cronies that get the job.

[Buck Birdseed]

I've no problem with votes being adjusted so that all states matter, but surely it should be done virtually and not with actual people sitting in a meeting and deciding. The way it's set up now, it's one of the US's few British-style 'good faith'/tradition-based institutions, and is open to abuse.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Snapcase
I've no problem with votes being adjusted so that all states matter, but surely it should be done virtually and not with actual people sitting in a meeting and deciding. The way it's set up now, it's one of the US's few British-style 'good faith'/tradition-based institutions, and is open to abuse.

No it isn't. The number of electoral votes a state gets is determined by taking the number of Congressmen from that state and adding 2, for the 2 Senators each state gets (don't even get me started on that system ).

Thus, each resident of Wyoming has four times the say in who gets to be President as each resident of California does. Very fair, right?

EDIT: grammar was iffy

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
2 Senators each state gets (don't even get me started on that system ).

That's precisely one of the reasons why the US government is (sadly) working better than the Canadian government. It's just hard for you to see, seeing as you're part of the majority anyway.

But yes, the US electoral college needs to be ditched. Badly.

[Buck Birdseed]

It's a federal system. The vote distribution is designed to maximise the power of each state so that small states have something to say on the matter, while still according big states more power within the system. I see no problem with this.

[KrazyHorse]

REally? I thought you didn't like farm subsidies, Asher. Because of the fact that the states benefitting most from these are small (and thus have greater power than their population merits), they get to throw their weight around and grab money from people in the big states' coffers.

One man, one vote. There's no reason we should give someone more power over the common government because he happens to live in Alaska rather than New York (or in PEI, rather than Ontario).

[notyoueither]

I agree with Snapcase.

::Heart Attack::

[JohnIII]

No, neither do I. The only problems I have with it are problems of implementation.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Snapcase
It's a federal system. The vote distribution is designed to maximise the power of each state so that small states have something to say on the matter, while still according big states more power within the system. I see no problem with this.

Why should people in small states have their votes count for more?

In other words, why accord small state more power than its numbers merit?

Should we give minorities more say than their numbers merit because there are less of them?

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
REally? I thought you didn't like farm subsidies, Asher.

When did I ever talk about farm subsidies?

One man, one vote. There's no reason we should give someone more power over the common government because he happens to live in Alaska rather than New York (or in PEI, rather than Ontario).

You're such an idiot sometimes.

I also agree with Snapcase.

[Asher]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
Why should people in small states have their votes count for more?

Ah, but they don't.
Overall, the big states still have more political sway (as it should).

The Senate is one way of helping to prevent the tyranny of the majority of trampling the rights of the minorities.

It's not that hard of a concept.

If we extended your concept to the real world with an extreme situation, what if 50.0001% of the people in our world decided that all socialists should be killed? One man, one vote, rule of the majority, right? All the socialists are round up and killed.

The idea of the Senate is to have rule of the majority while respecting the rights of the minorities. Comprende?