How the Electoral College can save the country

A parlimentary form of government, while not exactly what I am proposing, does dovetail well in principle with the upgrade to the EC. Small political parties could gain voting power by lobbying in areas where they are locally strong and thus gain electors the EC that have their agenda at heart. To give such parties more power in the EC the revisions could propose that any president be elected by majority vote only. In otherwords better than 50%. This would give small parties tremendous power to sway the election if the two major powers were relatively evenly matched as we currently have in the Demos and Repubs. One of the beautiful things of the proposed reforms is that each district would elect its own delagate to the EC. There would be no more of this winner take all stratagem that has so scandalized several previous elections. While representation would still be used in order to better educate voting delagates each precinct could send a person who has the ideals and principles espoused by that district to the EC thus insuring the broadest and best representation of America's populace.

I would like to hear more about how you think a parlimentary system would be best applied to our republic DF1 if you get the opportunity.

At this point I would still favor one man, one vote within the current system.

And I still don't like the idea of electing a seperate EC, however some group of elected officials, house of representive members perhaps, could perform the function of the EC and elect the president much the way a PM is selected in other parlimentary systems. I do like the idea of requiring a majority vote of the house to elect the president, but not under the present two party system. Without multiple parties representing a greater diversity of political views I think we would just have a different system that produces the same result as the present system. I have no idea how to overcome this obstacle.

But lets put that obstacle aside and assume we can break the demopublican 2 party strangle hold. The president elected by a majority (51%) of the house would then select his cabinet from the elected house/senate members. This would be positive in that all cabinet members would be elected by somebody rather than political appointments by the president.

I would have no problem with members of the US senate being elected by each states legislature and house members being elected by popular vote. And I see no reason to change the size of either legislative body.

This is a crude model of how I believe a US parlimentary system might be made to work, but I do not believe it is possible to reach the consensus needed make such a sweeping change. We have too many powerful forces that would not go along.

So until you can convince me it is possible, I will stick with one man, one vote.
.



[edit on 18-7-2004 by df1]

Originally posted by Johannmon
Pure Democracy has never in the history of mankind worked nor will it because the will of millions of people is too tenuous and fleeting to provide leadership that creates a great nation.

That is malarky!
Pure Democracy has never been tried either so no one really knows. Particularly in a society where the illiteracy rate is practically nil. The EC was created to protect those who were illiterate. It is now obsolete. Direct electronic vote using military grade encryption is the way to go for the *21st Century*!

I will however concur that a Republic is good for a *plan B*.

[edit on 18-7-2004 by Crysstaafur]

Nice suggestion on how a parlimentary system may work within the framework of our current system. I like the idea, especially if we went to the senate being elected by state legislators rather than by pure popular vote. It would, imho, put better leaders in the Senate and help the state legislatures to feel that they are a part of the national government again. Currently they have little say in national politics. This has created a disconnect that fosters unfunded mandates to the states. These mandates have been a contributing factor to many states financial woes. Certainly not the only factor but a significant one.

Back to a parlimentary system for a moment, It is quite possible that the house of reps could have decent 3rd party representation under the proposed system. The senate would almost certainly remain 2 party for the forseeable future due to the difficulty a 3rd party would have in winning a majority of a states legislature. The Senate could prove to be stabilizing factor on the multitude of parities and agendas that could be represented in the house. Of course this was the intent of the senate all along.

Again nice post df1

Originally posted by Crysstaafur
The EC was created to protect those who were illiterate. It is now obsolete. Direct electronic vote using military grade encryption is the way to go for the *21st Century*!

I will however concur that a Republic is good for a *plan B*.

[edit on 18-7-2004 by Crysstaafur]

I would just like to say that illiteracy is still a very big problem in this country. There are still a fairly large percentage of the populace that cannot read beyond a 3rd grade level. If you take that to the 8th grade level you get above a third of American. If you want to measure what percentage of Americans read on a collegiate level you are talking about a minority of the country. Illiteracy has been struck a few blows but like Rocky it has risen again and keeps fighting to dumb down the citizens of this republic in hopes of gaining control of more and more sheeple

The EC was not really created to help the illiterate but because information back then was scant and even when it was available it was very unreliable and slanted. All you got was a political flier or two, maybe a few articles from partisan news papers (if you were well off) and word of mouth gossip on the candidates. Actually it is not all that different from today though the amount of questionable information and gossip has increased exponentially. The EC was originally intended to be a voting body that brought the many different political influences together to vote for the president of the United States in a way could could be representative and therefore accountable. In fact even today there is no rule or law that requires someone sent to the EC under the democratic ticket to vote for the democratic candidate. Someone sent to vote for the Republican candidate can cast a vote for any eligable candidate. If only people would be given the information and access needed to make an intelligent decision the proposed system could be, in some rights made effective without any significant change in the current system. All that would be required would be to provide delagates access to the candidates for public interview and questioning thus giving the system we have today some legitimacy rather than keeping it around simply because we have always had it.

vote??

after the dibacle in 2000 im even thinking to myself what is the point of voting? when i learned in high school about the e.c. i couldnt belive that our vote really doesnt matter. and really it doesent. i have voted the last 2 elections but im debating wether or not i will come election time. it is obvious to me that the general public opinion (vote) doesnt make a lickin' diffrence to the government, and frankly it doesnt really matter to who gets what state during the election. after the 2k election with the supposed not counting minority votes, and the big problem that happend with us millitary members votes, and how the president was "appointed". i seriously am debating not even voting. unless im the ceo of microsoft ratheon, enron, or G.E. my vote dont mean squat anyway. rant off.

Originally posted by bigneum_808
vote??

after the dibacle in 2000 im even thinking to myself what is the point of voting? my vote dont mean squat anyway. rant off.

Perhaps you feel this way because you do not know who you are voting for. when you are voting for Gore, or Kerry you are really voting to send mysterious persons who like Gore or Kerry to the EC. Wouldn't it be far better to vote for a specific person on your local level whom you could talk to about the issues and their thoughts and opinions to the EC. Then when you are voting you know that you are voting for Joe Smith who likes Kerry because he stands for XYZ. You then know who you are voting for and why rather than voting for some nebulous delegate chosen arbitrarily by some party big wigs.

I am wondering how we could transition to a popular election without the EC. One man one vote with no states sending delegates. Just a national election winner take all by purely popular vote. Of course if that was done the less populated states would feel alienated since they would loose some influence and probably loose most visitations by the candidates. States like RI and MT might not see a presidential candidate for years but such would be the price to be paid for a popular election. They are pretty insignificant states on the national scheme of things anyway.

I thought of another angle to this plan and wanted to post it to the board. If the EC became a place where delegates were educated on the candidates history and views then the elections would be far less responsive to the events of the last two weeks leading up to the election. Currently popular opinion sways widely according to the current new of the day. up to 20 point shifts happen within a weeks time because of the fickle nature of public opinion. If candidates were reviewed in total while at the EC then a vote could be based on a more comprehensive picture of the potential leaders rather than a knee jerk reactiveness to whatever the latest events or ads stir in the general populace.