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I bet if I searched your posting history, I'd find posts that complain about Democrats trying to get the electors to abandon their pledge to vote for Trump, even though that's EXACTLY how the founders intended the process to work.
Electors were never intended to be "bound" or "pledged" to any candidate. They were to be intellectual free agents, free to deliberate and decide amongst themselves as "men most qualified" who the next president should be, without any obligation to the public vote in their state.
I never said they were intended to be bound or pledged and I did not make this thread with that thought in mind.
If you want to go through my posting history to prove a point you made on assumption alone, get a life.
The Founding Fathers saw this country as a collection of "united States" (not "the United States") where each state would have a voice in what goes on at the federal level. The Senate was originally the voice for the States in DC and the House was the voice for the people of each individual state. The Electoral College was designed to give each state a voice in who would be president. The Electoral College assures that.
I don't think the founding fathers ever anticipated that we would have a scenario where the popular vote leader was not elected president in two of five elections. Thwarting the will of the people was not their intention.
The fact that electors could actually go against how the people in their state voted and act on their own is just another sign that the electoral college has long outlived itself.
Of course they did. Additionally, the EC does not "thwart the will of the people", as we do not live in a democracy, but rather a republic. The Founding Fathers feared the tyranny of the majority that a straight up democracy would create.
Thus we have protections for the minority, with a means of the majority in the states to still have more, but not total control.
The Senate is a perfect example where the most populace state has an equal number of senators as the least populace state. Yet the House has huge numbers from the most populace, and hardly any from the least.
Remember, even in CA, they have what, 55 EC votes, compared to Wyoming only having 3. Yet cumulatively, the majority of the states must support a candidate for president for them to be elected.
As to the electors having the ability to change their votes, it was designed in case something came to light right after the election, such as the person was found to be insane, a foreign spy, or something major. Not just that some people had buyers remorse.
If that turns out to be the case, the citizens can redress it in the next election.
States have very specific powers granted to them by the Constitution. The liberal morons who cannot understand why the EC is important will not be able to do anything about it. It is way over their heads.
What they did NOT intend was for the electors to simply rubber stamp their state vote.
They didn't intend for there even to be a vote among the people for president to begin with. The public vote was supposed to be a vote for an elector, not a presidential candidate. But states aren't even obligated to have a public vote in the presidential election. Some states used to let their legislatures choose electors.
The Constitution only says that states have the power to appoint electors, but doesn't prescribe a method for doing so.
So technically, some state could say they're not going to allow a public vote in presidential elections anymore, and instead let their legislature appoint presidential electors, and it would be perfectly Constitutional.
Of course they did. Additionally, the EC does not "thwart the will of the people", as we do not live in a democracy, but rather a republic. The Founding Fathers feared the tyranny of the majority that a straight up democracy would create.
Thus we have protections for the minority, with a means of the majority in the states to still have more, but not total control.
The Senate is a perfect example where the most populace state has an equal number of senators as the least populace state. Yet the House has huge numbers from the most populace, and hardly any from the least.
Remember, even in CA, they have what, 55 EC votes, compared to Wyoming only having 3. Yet cumulatively, the majority of the states must support a candidate for president for them to be elected.
As to the electors having the ability to change their votes, it was designed in case something came to light right after the election, such as the person was found to be insane, a foreign spy, or something major. Not just that some people had buyers remorse.
If that turns out to be the case, the citizens can redress it in the next election.
I agree with pretty much everything you said except for the bolded. Here's why....
#1.)Your argument suggests that electors being able to change their votes was only a safeguard in case of some emergency situation in which new information came out after the election, which in turn implies that the electors would otherwise be a proxy for the public vote. That wasn't the case. At the founding, electors were intended to be unpledged, unbound free agents, who would use their own judgment in deciding the next president, unbeholden to the public sentiment.
#2.) Your premise assumes that there would even be a public vote in each state for a presidential candidate in the first place. It wasn't intended for the people of a state to cast a vote for a presidential candidate, rather, the people, if they voted at all, would vote for an elector, NOT a president. States don't even have to allow people to vote. They could just have the legislature appoint their state's electors and it would be perfectly Constitutional.
I think part of the problem is our school system. We REALLY focused on Democracy a lot, and "Spreading Democracy" while ignoring that we were in fact, NOT a democracy. Kinda funny, maybe we need to spread some of the democracy around, and get rid of the EC after this election, or change its function in some way.
a Republic is a specific form of democracy, there for, we are a democracy.
Originally Posted by MMS02760I don't think the founding fathers ever anticipated that we would have a scenario where the popular vote leader was not elected president in two of five elections. Thwarting the will of the people was not their intention.
Wow.... It's hard to know where to even start with this one.
#1, I think the fact that the founders opted for the Electoral College system instead of a straight up popular vote to begin with pretty much proves you wrong. See, we have a nation made up of autonomous States, each with their own issues, needs, and interests, and I'm sure it occurred to them that some states would have a lot more people living in them than others, but they chose a weighted system anyway to prevent the smaller states from being run over by the larger ones. That's also why small states like Wyoming have equal representation in the Senate as large states like California.
#2, the founders never envisioned a system where "the people" would vote for a president in the first place. They envisioned a system where, if people voted at all, they would vote for Electors, who would then elect the president using their own judgment. So, "the will of the people", at least as far as presidential elections were concerned, wasn't even a consideration of the founders, because they didn't think the people at large possessed the requisite information required to responsibly choose the president. That's why they descried the electors as "men most qualified"....
Quote:
The fact that electors could actually go against how the people in their state voted and act on their own is just another sign that the electoral college has long outlived itself.
Refer to the above....^^^^^ The original plan wasn't for people to vote for a president, it was for people to vote for electors. So, electors wouldn't be able to "go against how the people in their state voted" because the people in their state weren't supposed to be voting for a presidential candidate in the first place.
Last edited by WhipperSnapper 88; 12-22-2016 at 01:22 AM..
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