the electoral college. why?

can someone help walk me through this because i really dont understand this system. i dont understand exactly how it works and i dont understand why we use this system still. actually i dont know why it is used at all.
i read an article on it. so we(american people) elect representatives(the college) and they elect the president.

what possible benefit does/did this system have?

does simple popular vote not make more sense?

thank you

Schuyler made a great thread about the Electoral College recently.

I have attached a link.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: TinySickTears

This system was set up back in the days of horses, carriages and homesteading. It was a way for communities to express their majority vote through a proxy representative in order to remain on Thier farms etc...where they were needed day to day.

Now it is a system that allows for fraud perpetrated against the voter by a select few. It is archaic and utterly abused, much like redesigning voter districts IE carpet bagging etc..

But much like voting themselves term limits Congress won't vote against their own established intetests.

Yaya America!

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
Schuyler made a great thread about the Electoral College recently.

I have attached a link.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Yes. The OP's every question answered.

The main argument in support of the electoral college is that it supposedly gives the candidates an incentive to campaign in states with smaller populations, rather than just disregarding them entirely and therefore gives those states a voice in the election of the president that they might otherwise not have.

If we're going to keep the electoral college, and I think we probably should, I'd like to see it changed rather from 'winner take all' to being based on winners of congressional districts, which makes more sense given that the number of electors for a state is based on congressional districts plus the two senate seats.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
Schuyler made a great thread about the Electoral College recently.

I have attached a link.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

thanks my friend. going to read it now

because this: www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: vor78

that`s why I don`t vote, I live in a predominately democrat state so the democrat candidate for president always gets all the electorial votes from my state, so if you vote for a candidate who isn`t a democrat you`re just wasting your time voting.

a reply to: Tardacus

That's one of the problems with it. Its also why I'd support basing it on congressional districts. It wouldn't solve all the problems, but it would give political minorities in many states more influence on the outcome than what they have now.

So it can all be fixed.

originally posted by: TinySickTears
can someone help walk me through this because i really dont understand this system. i dont understand exactly how it works and i dont understand why we use this system still. actually i dont know why it is used at all.
i read an article on it. so we(american people) elect representatives(the college) and they elect the president.

what possible benefit does/did this system have?

does simple popular vote not make more sense?

thank you

A simple understanding is there is no national election for President. There are fifty State elections for President. Each state allocated a number of electoral votes intended to compensate, partially, for population differences. Merely because the media lump all the votes together gives a false impression of the process by talking about voting percentages.

A straight 'popular vote' would result in the five big states being the ones receiving the attention, bribes for votes and pork barrel projects at the expense of the remainder.

Simply put, California, New York, Illinois ,Texas and Florida would largely control the nation.

My personal opinion is getting rid of the electoral collage would end the Union in short order. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

originally posted by: schuyler
because this: www.abovetopsecret.com...

I had already put them on the path to the darkside!!

a reply to: TinySickTears

does simple popular vote not make more sense?

I couldn't agree more never really understood that myself. I see the possibility of a system like that being manipulated. In a perfect world it couldn't but ours is far from perfect. I feel the popular vote makes more sense. But either way it still boils down to the people that get in position to hold office and whose interest they truly serve that makes the difference.

a reply to: InconspicuousObserver

I feel the popular vote makes more sense.

It makes sense if you think the US is a true democracy.

It makes sense if you think that majority rule is a good idea.

It makes sense if you think that the idea of states rights is not valid.

It makes sense if you think that states with small populations should surrender their elective power to states with large populations.

It does not make sense if you understand that the US is a republic.

It does not make sense if you understand that majority rule results in a loss of rights to any one who is not a member of the majority.

It does not make sense if you think that each state has valid concerns of its own.

It does not make sense if you understand that states with small populations should have just as much say in who is elected for President as states with large populations.

a reply to: Phage

Most Americans don't ultimately care whether their presidential candidate wins or loses in their state or district . . . they care whether he/she wins the White House. Voters want to know, that even if they were on the losing side, their vote actually was equally counted and mattered to their candidate. Most Americans think it is wrong that the candidate with the most popular votes can lose. We don't allow this in any other election in our representative republic.

In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state's electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided).

Support for a national popular vote is strong among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group in every state surveyed recently. In the 41 red, blue, and purple states surveyed, overall support has been in the 67-81% range - in rural states, in small states, in Southern and border states, in big states, and in other states polled.
Americans believe that the candidate who receives the most votes should win.

A constitutional republic does not mean we should not and cannot guarantee the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes. The candidate with the most votes wins in every other election in the country.

Guaranteeing the election of the presidential candidate with the most popular votes would not make us a pure democracy.
Pure democracy is a form of government in which people vote on all policy initiatives directly.

Popular election of the chief executive does not determine whether a government is a republic or democracy.

a reply to: Phage

With the Electoral College and federalism, the Founding Fathers meant to empower the states to pursue their own interests within the confines of the Constitution. National Popular Vote is an exercise of that power, not an attack upon it.

The Electoral College is now the set of 538 dedicated party activists who vote as rubberstamps for their party’s presidential candidate. That is not what the Founders intended.

The Founding Fathers in the Constitution did not require states to allow their citizens to vote for president, much less award all their electoral votes based upon the vote of their citizens.

The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, were eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution. Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.

During the course of campaigns, candidates are educated and campaign about the local, regional, and state issues most important to the handful of battleground states they need to win. They take this knowledge and prioritization with them once they are elected. Candidates need to be educated and care about all of our states.

The current state-by-state winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state, ensures that the candidates, after the conventions, in 2012 did not reach out to about 80% of the states and their voters. 10 of the original 13 states are ignored now. 80% of states’ votes were conceded months before by the minority parties in the states, taken for granted by the dominant party in the states, and ignored by all parties in presidential campaigns. Candidates had no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they were safely ahead or hopelessly behind.

In 2012, 80% of the states and people were just spectators to the presidential election. That's more than 85 million voters, more than 200 million Americans.

In 2012, more than 99% of presidential campaign attention (ad spending and visits) was invested on voters in just the then only ten competitive states. Two-thirds (176 of 253) of the general-election campaign events, and a similar fraction of campaign expenditures, were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Iowa). 38 states were politically irrelevant.

In 2012, 24 of the nation's 27 smallest states received no attention at all from presidential campaigns after the conventions. They were ignored despite their supposed numerical advantage in the Electoral College. In fact, the 8.6 million eligible voters in Ohio received more campaign ads and campaign visits from the major party campaigns than the 42 million eligible voters in those 27 smallest states combined.

In the 25 smallest states in 2008, the Democratic and Republican popular vote was almost tied (9.9 million versus 9.8 million), as was the electoral vote (57 versus 58).

The 25 smallest states have been almost equally noncompetitive. They voted Republican or Democratic 12-13 in 2008 and 2012.

There are only expected to be 7 remaining swing states in 2016.

Issues of importance to non-battleground states are of so little interest to presidential candidates that they don’t even bother to poll them.

Over 87% of both Romney and Obama campaign offices were in just the then 12 swing states. The few campaign offices in the 38 remaining states were for fund-raising, volunteer phone calls, and arranging travel to battleground states.

Since World War II, a shift of a few thousand votes in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 15 presidential elections

Policies important to the citizens of non-battleground states are not as highly prioritized as policies important to ‘battleground’ states when it comes to governing.

“Battleground” states receive 7% more federal grants than “spectator” states, twice as many presidential disaster declarations, more Superfund enforcement exemptions, and more No Child Left Behind law exemptions.

Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republicans, Democrats, and Independent voters, as well as every demographic group

Among the 13 lowest population states, the National Popular Vote bill has passed in 9 state legislative chambers, and been enacted by 4 jurisdictions.

a reply to: schuyler

Excellent thread Schuyler, you explained the necessity for the Electoral College in a rather simple to understand manner which lays out the benefits of that method of electing our leaders. I intend on bookmarking that one so I can direct people there in the future who have similar questions.

a reply to: Phage

The National Popular Vote bill retains the Electoral College and state control of elections. It again changes the way electoral votes are awarded in the Electoral College.

Under National Popular Vote, every voter, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would matter in the state counts and national count. When states with a combined total of at least 270 electoral votes enact the bill, the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states and DC would get the needed majority of 270+ Electoral College votes from the enacting states. The bill would thus guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes and the majority of Electoral College votes.

States have the responsibility and power to make all of their voters relevant in every presidential election and beyond.

Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution-- "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."

Federalism concerns the allocation of power between state governments and the national government. The National Popular Vote bill concerns how votes are tallied, not how much power state governments possess relative to the national government. The powers of state governments are neither increased nor decreased based on whether presidential electors are selected along the state boundary lines, or national lines (as with the National Popular Vote).

a reply to: nwtrucker

With the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but later enacted by 48 states), it could only take winning a bare plurality of popular votes in only the 11 most populous states, containing 56% of the population of the United States, for a candidate to win the Presidency with a mere 23% of the nation's votes!

But the political reality is that the 11 largest states, with a majority of the U.S. population and electoral votes, rarely agree on any political question. In terms of recent presidential elections, the 11 largest states have included five "red states (Texas, Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, and Georgia) and six "blue" states (California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and New Jersey). The fact is that the big states are just about as closely divided as the rest of the country. For example, among the four largest states, the two largest Republican states (Texas and Florida) generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Bush, while the two largest Democratic states generated a total margin of 2.1 million votes for Kerry.

In 2004, among the 11 most populous states, in the seven non-battleground states, % of winning party, and margin of “wasted” popular votes, from among the total 122 Million votes cast nationally:
* Texas (62% Republican), 1,691,267
* New York (59% Democratic), 1,192,436
* Georgia (58% Republican), 544,634
* North Carolina (56% Republican), 426,778
* California (55% Democratic), 1,023,560
* Illinois (55% Democratic), 513,342
* New Jersey (53% Democratic), 211,826

To put these numbers in perspective,
Oklahoma (7 electoral votes) generated a margin of 455,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004 -- larger than the margin generated by the 9th and 10th largest states, namely New Jersey and North Carolina (each with 15 electoral votes).
Utah (5 electoral votes) generated a margin of 385,000 "wasted" votes for Bush in 2004.
8 small western states, with less than a third of California’s population, provided Bush with a bigger margin (1,283,076) than California provided Kerry (1,235,659).

a reply to: vor78

Maine (since 1969) and Nebraska (since 1992) have awarded one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district, and two electoral votes statewide

77% of Maine voters and 74% of Nebraska voters support a national popular vote.

Dividing more states’ electoral votes by congressional district winners would magnify the worst features of the Electoral College system.

If the district approach were used nationally, it would be less fair and less accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country's congressional districts. In 2012, the Democratic candidate would have needed to win the national popular vote by more than 7 percentage points in order to win the barest majority of congressional districts. In 2014, Democrats would have needed to win the national popular vote by a margin of about nine percentage points in order to win a majority of districts.

In 2012, for instance, when Obama garnered nearly a half million more votes in Michigan than Romney, Romney won nine of the state’s 14 congressional districts.

Nationwide, there are now only 10 "battleground" districts that are expected to be competitive in the 2016 presidential election. With the present deplorable 48 state-level winner-take-all system, 80% of the states (including California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, 98% of the nation's congressional districts would be ignored if a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally

The district approach would not provide incentive for presidential candidates to poll, visit, advertise, and organize in a particular state or focus the candidates' attention to issues of concern to the state.

In Maine, the closely divided 2nd congressional district received campaign events in 2008 (whereas Maine's 1st reliably Democratic district was ignored).
In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

In Nebraska, the 2008 presidential campaigns did not pay the slightest attention to the people of Nebraska's reliably Republican 1st and 3rd congressional districts because it was a foregone conclusion that McCain would win the most popular votes in both of those districts. The issues relevant to voters of the 2nd district (the Omaha area) mattered, while the (very different) issues relevant to the remaining (mostly rural) 2/3rds of the state were irrelevant.
In 2012, the whole state was ignored.

Awarding electoral votes by congressional district could result in no candidate winning the needed majority of electoral votes. That would throw the process into Congress to decide the election, regardless of the popular vote in any district or state or throughout the country.

Because there are generally more close votes on district levels than states as whole, district elections increase the opportunity for error. The larger the voting base, the less opportunity there is for an especially close vote.

Also, a second-place candidate could still win the White House without winning the national popular vote.

A national popular vote is the way to make every person's vote equal and matter to their candidate because it guarantees that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states and DC becomes President.