marie@harvard.ARPA (Marie Desjardins) (12/10/84)
> Technically, the electors can vote for anyone they wish. There was even a > recent occasion (1968 I think) when an elector voted differently from the > way he had pledged, and his actual vote counted (but didn't affect the > results). > > Electors are supposed to vote the way the voters did in their states, and > sometimes a state has two sets of potential electors so that they can choose > the appropriate set after seeing how their voters have chosen. And you > though software was kludgy. I understand (as well as it's possible to understand, I guess!) how the electoral college system works. But can anyone explain why this system was created? (historically) and why we continue to use it, if it's for outmoded reasons? (e.g. early in the history of the U.S. it would've been real difficult for everyone to send their votes to be counted via Pony Express :-) but I doubt that's a problem now...) Nobody I've ever asked (including lawyers, Gov majors, etc...) seems to know the answer. Marie desJardins marie@harvard
mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) (12/10/84)
I was taught that the Electoral College was originally created because: -1- it would have taken too long to gather up the popular vote -2- the founding fathers didn't really trust the people to make an intelligent choice. Now that communications are better and people are theoretically more aware of the issues, what the candidates are saying, etc., the system seems to be pretty outdated/bogus. I don't buy the argument that the Electoral College protects minorities by making sure people in states with low populations have a say; either their 3 electoral votes don't really matter (and so the system doesn't really help them) or they are getting more than their fair share of the vote. My vote should count as much as yours regardless of where we each live; I shouldn't have a bigger say because I live in Utah or something. (Yes, I realize this is only a small difference with regard to the grand scheme of things, since part of the electoral share is roughly based on population.) Two hundred years ago people were broken up along geographical lines, so (say) all the people in Virginia were likely to feel the same way about a given issue while all the people in Vermont were likely to feel exactly the opposite way. Now, however, people are broken up along a number of lines; why protect geographical minorities if we aren't going to protect any other minorities? What makes them so special? We could just as easily break things up along, say, religous grounds; the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu will gladly take its 3 votes. Doesn't make much sense to do this, though. -Dragon -- UUCP: ...seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg
mark@elsie.UUCP (Mark J. Miller) (12/11/84)
> I was taught that the Electoral College was originally created because: > -1- it would have taken too long to gather up the popular vote > -2- the founding fathers didn't really trust the people to make an > intelligent choice. > (Perhaps the founding fathers were right?!) The major argument that remains for the Electoral College is to prevent one region of the country from forcing a popular regional candidate on the rest of the nation. In 1976, for example, Jimmy Carter ran as the first Southerner to get a major party nomination since the Civil War and won the South by an overwhelming margin. His EC vote was very close, however. -- Mark J. Miller NIH/NCI/DCE/LEC UUCP: decvax!harpo!seismo!elsie!mark Phone: (301) 496-5688
marie@harvard.ARPA (Marie Desjardins) (12/11/84)
> The major argument that remains for the Electoral College is to prevent one > region of the country from forcing a popular regional candidate on the rest > of the nation. In 1976, for example, Jimmy Carter ran as the first > Southerner to get a major party nomination since the Civil War and won > the South by an overwhelming margin. His EC vote was very close, however. So? If Area X loves Candidate Y, and they have more people than there are in other areas (or at least add enough votes to those of the rest of the country to elect Candidate Y), why shouldn't that person be elected? Marie desJardins marie@harvard
geb@cadre.UUCP (12/12/84)
I believe the electoral college was created because initially it was thought that the states should elect the president, and not by popular vote. During the early days of the US the example of the popular hysteria that swept France after their revolution was on everyone's mind and most of the founding fathers did not trust the people's ability to withstand demagoguery. The electoral college gives a little more power to the less populous states and thus preserves some regionalism. It would be almost impossible to do away with the system, since the constitutional amendment necessary would fail to pass 3/4 of the state legislatures, since it would enhance the power of the large population states at the expense of the majority of small population states.
lmc@denelcor.UUCP (Lyle McElhaney) (12/13/84)
> > The major argument that remains for the Electoral College is to prevent one > > region of the country from forcing a popular regional candidate on the rest > > of the nation. > > So? If Area X loves Candidate Y, and they have more people than there > are in other areas (or at least add enough votes to those of the rest of > the country to elect Candidate Y), why shouldn't that person be elected? > Historically, the real reason is that there was no other way to get enough votes for the original constitution in the Continental Congress (?) except to compromise. Many small colonies felt that populous Virginia would rule the nation, so they refused to sign until the Senate was set up to protect low-population states. The electoral college serves the same function, since the number of votes is the sum of the number of senators and representatives. Without this compromise the constitution would not have had enough votes to go into effect; thereafter inertia and political conservatism kept the electoral college there. -- Lyle McElhaney {hao, stcvax, brl-bmd, nbires, csu-cs} !denelcor!lmc
87064023@sdcc3.UUCP ({|lit) (12/21/84)
> > I understand (as well as it's possible to understand, I guess!) how the > electoral college system works. But can anyone explain why this system > was created? A quick reading of the political correspondence of the time reveals that the authors of the constitution were faced with a dillemma: how to place the electoral process in the hands of the populace while avoiding the "inevitable" effects of "the tyrrany of numbers". Their solutions was to let the populous elect those who would elect the president. An interesting side note is that the authors of the constitution did not think anyone would *EVER* get a majority of the Electoral College votes, and expected that most elections would fall to the House of Representatives. In this way, they would again be protected from "the folly of popular whim" by having only congressmen cast ballots for the president. This would also have served to make the president more beholden to Congress (since the house would have to re-elect him). Only the birth of national political parties foiled this plan. (Wallace came close to forcing the election to the House in the 1960's, however).
87064023@sdcc3.UUCP ({|lit) (12/21/84)
> Technically, the electors can vote for anyone they wish. There was even a > recent occasion (1968 I think) when an elector voted differently from the > way he had pledged, and his actual vote counted (but didn't affect the > results). There have been a lot of times when an elector voted differently from the way he had pledged. The Libertarian party has received electoral votes at least 3 times (sometimes more that one vote) and in the 1972 race a Carter delegate voted for Ford. Teddy Roosevelt's Bull Moose progressive party received a bunch of change-overs between the popular election and the EC election. (they ended up coming in second, with one of the "major" parties coming in third.) Similar things have happened to the Prohibition party and other significant third parties throughout our history.
colonel@gloria.UUCP (George Sicherman) (12/28/84)
> I read another good argument for the electoral college: > It limits the scope of the damage from hanky-panky. Sometimes > even this mechanism fails. In 1960, Mayor Daley's vote > totals from Chicago gave Kennedy the Election. Nixon didn't > challenge but it was almost certain that in an honest election > he would have won Illinois. If there was no electoral college, > cheating would be more likely to swing the entire election > rather than just one state's votes. So it looks as if the Electoral College _increases_ the scope of dishonesty! Swing one state and you may swing the nation. -- Col. G. L. Sicherman ...seismo!rochester!rocksanne!rocksvax!sunybcs!gloria!colonel