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In a democracy, votes cast by urban citizens invariably weigh more than votes cast by rural citizens. It's a simple fact that democracies favor urban interests. The majority lives in urban locales. The majority rules. The electoral college isn't about favoring rural voters. It's about redressing the natural imbalance imposed by the democratic process.
How many of the 300M population live in cities? 50M? 100M? (already a stretch in my opinion). That leaves us with non city dwellers in majority.
Other than 2 times in history (note: I am not counting the Jackson/Adams and Hayes/Tilden elections because those were mired in several other issues besides EC vs. popular vote), the eventual President of the US has won the popular vote. I fail to see how popular vote then changes election results.
And, by the way, your argument would also involve elections of state governors, US senators, mayors of cities, etc. Everything should be an electoral college?
No. We are supposed to have a federalist government. The U.S. is not supposed to be one big "super state".
Our state governors and state legislatures should be more important to us than the federal government. Unfortunately, at this time, it's the other way around. Ron Paul understands this. I'm not sure that the other Republican presidential candidates do.
Zakaria also claims there are "antiquated" elements of the Constitution. I think this is true, especially the Electoral College. I have yet to hear a viable, legitimate reason why we can vote for every other office in government by popular vote but for the Presidency.
That's probably because you aren't interested in hearing a reason.
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Originally Posted by All American NYC
We need to rewrite the 14th amendment for its true intent
Amen, brother.
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Originally Posted by WestCobb
People who want to get rid of the electoral college because it usurps the popular vote, and people who want to keep it because they think it somehow gives rural citizens more of a vote than urban ones, are both wrong. The electoral college is anachronistic, borne out of the logistical problems of a nation-wide vote back in the late 1700s, but for the most part its results mirror the results of the popular vote, so who cares?
Geez, another who doesn't understand the US Constitution.
The entire system of government is vested in "balance of power" and a system of "checks and balances."
The president can veto bills, but Congress can override the veto with a majority vote, and the Supreme Court can declare it unconstitutional (or not).
You elect senators on a rotating basis. Only 1/3 of the Senate is ever up for election at any time. That is to prevent sudden shifts in political ideology.
At one point, the States selected Senators, while the people elected Congresspersons. That was another built-in system of checks and balances.
The Electoral College is simply one of several systems designed to balance power to prevent sudden shifts in political ideology, to prevent mob rule, to ensure a smooth transition of government, etc, etc, etc.
It's unfortunate that you aren't capable of understanding that.
Perhaps you might actually learn something if you were forced to live in a country that went from conservative to communist to liberal to dictatorial and back all within the space of a few years. You'd be whining and crying like a sissy about how you couldn't prosper and didn't have any money and couldn't own anything and how your currency has value and then it doesn't and then it does etc etc etc.
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Originally Posted by theunbrainwashed
I watched his junk show on CNN's GPS one morning and he pretty much alluded to that. He wants us to be like Iceland and have a constitutional convention to completely write it up
You need to keep your eye on him. He's one of those liberal elite Egyptian intellectuals and a snake in the grass. He's been around for a while. I first started reading his stuff around 2004 or so. At that time he was doing a lot of work for the Carnegie Institute, so what does that tell you?
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Originally Posted by steven_h
That isn't what was implied. The electoral college is a failsafe to keep any single group-think from taking over the Presidential election. Do you think the midwest would get a fair say in elections if NY, LA and SF controlled every election? That's how a popular vote would play out.
The founding fathers are given little credit for being smarter than todays elitists. That's why the constitution erks them so badly.
Quite right.
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Originally Posted by North Beach Person
Third link: 80% live in a metropolitan area.
In 1960, only 51% of Americans lived in metropolitan or urban areas.
30 years before that it was 30% living in metropolitan areas.
Seeing how things change, are you absolutely certain that 50 years from now 80% will still be living in urban or metropolitan areas?
Do you think the midwest would get a fair say in elections if NY, LA and SF controlled every election? That's how a popular vote would play out.
Again, I don't see how this logic because, as mentioned, the winner of the popular vote has won the Presidency 95+% of the time. In fact, the opposite has actually occurred - the electoral college vote is more often more lopsided than the Electoral Vote total.
Furthermore, as it is right now, the Electoral College gives the power to only a handful of "swing" states.
And, by the way, the Constitution is also designed so that the power to elect the President is ultimately decided by 539 people/electors - out of 300+ million. And those Electors can vote however they want (or not cast a vote at all), as the Constitution makes no requirements for these Electors to vote with their states. These "faithless" voters can be punished after the fact by states, but their vote can still go through and count. This has actually happened in the past, though not to the point of changing the outcome of an election. Nevertheless, it is a real possibility.
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The founding fathers are given little credit for being smarter than todays elitists. That's why the constitution erks them so badly.
I personally don't think the Electoral College was developed to stop "single group-think" per se. After all, we have had plenty of elections where the winner has won a large majority of the Electoral College and almost always a majority of the popular vote. One function of the Electoral College was to stop the poorer segments of the population from having (much) say in the ultimate decision of who would be the President. After all, only white, male property owners were granted full voting rights.
I personally don't think the Electoral College was developed to stop "single group-think" per se. After all, we have had plenty of elections where the winner has won a large majority of the Electoral College and almost always a majority of the popular vote. One function of the Electoral College was to stop the poorer segments of the population from having (much) say in the ultimate decision of who would be the President. After all, only white, male property owners were granted full voting rights.
Then by virtue of your reasoning the electoral college works.
Aren't you contridicting yourself? If only white male property owners could vote, why would they give a snot about the poor segments of the populous?
The framers new that at any point in time the interpretation would change. They took into account every scenario and came up with the best way to keep the republic, a republic. You might not like everything about the Constitution, but you have to admit they did a damn fine job.
How many of the 300M population live in cities? 50M? 100M? (already a stretch in my opinion). That leaves us with non city dwellers in majority.
I think what is being missed by most is the founders of the Constitution deliberately crafted a system to produce a weak national government for they feared a strong one.
Even though our federal government has grown into a far stronger monster than our founders envisioned some modernists think it should be even stronger yet in order to "get things done".
For the life of me I don't know what could be the problem with a strong central government lots of other countries have enjoyed strong central governments such as Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's Communist China and who could forget Hitler's Germany?
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