The Electoral College

[Hunter]

Those of us who live in America should know what the Electoral College is.

For those of us who don't, basically the people don't actually vote for president. They tell a bunch of 'electors' who'd they like to be president, and then they all vote the same way, regardless of the split in the actual vote.

I'd like to know what people think about the system, whther it works of if it needs to be revamped.

Frankly it needs some revamping. In states like New York and California, it usually ends up that the big cities, who outweigh the rest of the state, decide it for us. And what's good for those cities isn't necessarily good for the rest of the state/nation. The only thing I can think of would be to allow the electors to split their votes, and possibly assign them to a region of each state.

[Hypnos]

The Electoral College concept is great -- it cominatorially maximizes your vote.

However, you are right that in the US the original districting (by states) has outgrown the optimum. We might need another college level below the current one in larger states.

Article:

http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/elections.html

The question is can you convince all those numb nuts who buy lottery tickets; it would not be good to effect changes without convincing them, I would think, because understanding is part of transparency.

[Hunter]

We could just hand out Powerball/Mega Millions/local multi-million dollar lottery equivalent to everyone who shwos up and vote too, speaking of the lottery.

That system would be better, but it doesn't solve the problem of big cities being all that matters in a state. Hell, our OWN canidates don't come to upstate half the time.

[Miss Padfoot]

I didn't always like the electoral college. But I read a great book called Political Numeracy that made some good points in favor of it. The main one was that due to the disproportional focus on winning the undecided "swing states," candidates have to make their policies somewhat more moderate, and moderation generally leads to better cooperation and a generally better political situation.

[Johnny]

I'm comfortable with both. There have been very few times in our history where the popular vote and the electoral vote did not share the same results, and the popular vote is valuable data regardless. But I can't comment on the electoral college's ability to moderate a presidential candidate's platform.

Still, I agree with Hypnos that perhaps only those who bothered to pay attention to the 2000 election results know what the popular vote really stands for.

[MacGuffin]

That system would be better, but it doesn't solve the problem of big cities being all that matters in a state. Hell, our OWN canidates don't come to upstate half the time.
The electoral college was designed so populous states wouldn't dominate the smaller states in a national election. Maybe large states should have their own electoral college so the large cities don't dominate.

[libertarianjim]

The only thing I can think of would be to allow the electors to split their votes, and possibly assign them to a region of each state.

Maine and Nebraska do something like this: Two EVs are awarded to the statewide winner, and 1 EV is apportioned to each congressional district. Keep an eye on Maine this cycle, given the closeness of the polls there it's possible that it might split its votes.

[BritainOphira]

The electoral college was designed so populous states wouldn't dominate the smaller states in a national election.
Funny how it seems to do the exact opposite. States such as California and Florida are heavily concentrated on during campaigns, while smaller, less densely populated states, such as my very own Kentucky (eight, or even Alaska, Montana, Delaware, etc. with just three), are generally ignored because, after all, who needs single digit votes when they can grab thirty-fifty some odd votes just by winning a key state?

[candela]

It still does give small states more power than they would have if they went strictly by population. I'm not sure I understand the problem with big states having a lot of power in the election..Sure you can get a disproportionate number of votes for a candidate due to a close election in a big state, but still I don't see the problem. It's doing what it was meant to do, isn't it?

As far as what's good for people in the cities isn't good for the rest of the state: If there are more people in the cities, then what's good for the people in the cities is good for the majority of the state.