Why an electoral college?

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DruMAX

Contributor
Veteran X
Now I know what it is, I just dont know why the hell we have it. Wouldn't we be closer to a true democracy if we simply counted the popular vote of the US as a whole?
 
DruMAX said:
Now I know what it is, I just dont know why the hell we have it. Wouldn't we be closer to a true democracy if we simply counted the popular vote of the US as a whole?
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If there were no electoral college then most states would have little to no voice in Presidential elections since the majority of the population lives in just a few states.
 
States have representatives, our system gives them this. Why do states matter in the national presidential election? Are we not all americans?
 
StreakinMe said:
If there were no electoral college then most states would have little to no voice in Presidential elections since the majority of the population lives in just a few states.
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Right and wrong.

Presidential candidates would ignore the smaller states and campaign in the larger states. But it doesn't mean small states would have no voice. As it is right now, smaller states have less electoral votes than the larger states anyway.

Case in point, Florida was contested heavily in 2000 because it had enough votes to swing it for either candidate. But neither of them said shit about New Mexico, which was decided by 200 votes.
 
The only reason I can find for having people selected to vote for us (meaning even if the majority of people vote one way they can still vote another) is:

The Electoral College is a controversial mechanism of presidential elections that was created by the framers of the constitution as a compromise for the presidential election process. At the time, some politicians believed a purely popular election was too reckless, while others objected to giving Congress the power to select the president.

Its like our vote doesnt count at all.
 
StreakinMe said:
If there were no electoral college then most states would have little to no voice in Presidential elections since the majority of the population lives in just a few states.
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wrong. Smaller states have less electoral votes.
 
vawlk said:
wrong. Smaller states have less electoral votes.
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It's all relative, they have less but they still have some. If you went by population you would pretty much just have to win over California and New York, maybe one or two other states to win.
 
StreakinMe said:
It's all relative, they have less but they still have some. If you went by population you would pretty much just have to win over California and New York, maybe one or two other states to win.
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That's how it is now. The only difference is 3rd party candidates have virtually 0 chance of getting delegates, and even if they do they'd probably vote for the main 2 parties.
 
StreakinMe said:
It's all relative, they have less but they still have some. If you went by population you would pretty much just have to win over California and New York, maybe one or two other states to win.
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no, its harder to win by population in that example since it is virtually impossible to get all the popular votes in a state. However in the electoral college, if you get 50.0000001% of the popular vote in a state you get 100% of the electoral votes for that state.
 
vawlk said:
no, its harder to win by population in that example since it is virtually impossible to get all the popular votes in a state. However in the electoral college, if you get 50.0000001% of the popular vote in a state you get 100% of the electoral votes for that state.
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no, the electoral college does not have anything to do with the popular vote, it can go against the popular vote.

"However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, which is entirely legal. "
 
Hey, I have a question. In the Simpsons when Lisa becomes President, they refer to her as the President-Elect rather than just the President. Why is that? I don't get the term.
 
DruMAX said:
no, the electoral college does not have anything to do with the popular vote, it can go against the popular vote.

"However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision, which is entirely legal. "
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yes it can, but it is VERY rare and never recently if I can recall. In modern practice, all the electoral votes go to the popular vote winner of a state.
 
MadeInCanada said:
Hey, I have a question. In the Simpsons when Lisa becomes President, they refer to her as the President-Elect rather than just the President. Why is that? I don't get the term.
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after u win an election they call you 'president-elect' until you're sworn in.

edit: ie start working
 
Tofutti said:
after u win an election they call you 'president-elect' until you're sworn in.
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Ahhhhh. That's what Haze said it was, but I wanted a second opinion. You should stop by IRC sometime.
 
I just read something about this for one of my classes. The US has used this process since its early days. They used it to avoid conflicts or something. They wanted equal representation between the states and the people. Don't know if that makes a lick of sense, but that's what I put for the answer and it was right.
 
i thought it was because the states choose the president, not the people. each state decides who they want to be president (ie, the whole 50.000001% thing has the state deciding a certain person), and then the electoral college is basically the amount of weight that state has in choosing who gets to be president.

that didn't sound too coherent but maybe you'll understand what i mean
 
Alexander Hamilton explained that the whole point of the
Electoral College was to interpose "every practicable obstacle"
to "cabal, intrigue and corruption." The roundabout method of choosing
a president imposed by the Constitution was intended to frustrate "the
adversaries of republican government" and prevent them from gaining "an
improper ascendant in our councils."



Instead of relying upon "existing bodies of men who might be tampered
with beforehand to prostitute their votes," the Constitution placed the
power of selecting a president "in the first instance to an immediate
act of the people of America."



But it would not merely be a vote of the people because the framers
feared that a direct popular vote would tend to reward candidates
practiced at the "little arts of popularity," as Hamilton put it in
Federalist No. 68. The people would simply vote for electors, and the
electors would have the "temporary and sole purpose" of choosing the
president.
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back then it was potentially easy to corrupt a presidential election. With only a few million votes and no easy way to communicate between population centers, the electoral college was a good idea.

However, it is not needed anymore.
 
There's no reason for the EC anymore. The majority of the state's population still defines the votes of the electoral college for that state, and states are usually carried by how "city folk" vote, anyway. You still end up with the majority populations determining the votes of the EC, no matter how you draw it up. Otherwise, the College also means that voters in some states are only a fraction of a vote. This, of course, is not why the EC was first introduced. It was believed that the people of the country would have no way of knowing who the appropriate candidate was and would therefore vote unwisely. The College now must (not in all circumstances, though) vote with the popular state vote.
 
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