Death to the electoral college

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Just to clarify some stuff for those who asked about the electoral college. To my knowledge the system has been in place since the very first presidential election. What happens is that the president is not elected directly by the popular vote, but by the electoral college. The way the system works is that whichever party gets the most votes in the state (although not necessarily the majority of votes - just the most) gets to pick the voters that will represent them in the electoral college. As BTA said, the number of electoral votes a state gets is equal to the number of representatives a state has in Congress, so it's always at least 3 votes, regardless of the population of the state. So the low population states like Hawaii, Wyoming, Alaska, etc. each only have three votes. While the most populous state - California - has something like 56 votes - give or take a few.

Then, the person who receives the majority of electoral college votes wins the presidency. In the case of no majority, the vote goes to the House of Representatives, and the House picks the president. This has only happen once in the history of the U.S. The first time Andrew Jackson ran for president, there were three fairly popular canidates, and none of them won enough states to get the majority of electoral college votes. Even though Jackson had the most total votes and most electoral votes, he lost the election in the House. He ran again four years later, and won (and got re-elected four years after that too).

Now with all that background, I have to disagree with some of what has been said. For example, Grey's initial point of "A candidate with huge victory margins in California and New York could swamp the rest of the country." Doesn't that happen anyway? The canidate with 50% +1 voter in California gets all 56 electoral votes. Also to note is that four years ago, Gore received ALL of California's electoral votes and ALL of New York's electoral votes, and yet he still lost the election. While it is true that the canidates that win the big states tend to win the election, 2000 is a prime example of the exception. GWB won that election by winning all of the smaller states in the middle of the country. So it's not true that "whoever wins the coast will win the election" because Gore won the vast majority of the coasts' votes in 2000.

I don't have a good solution to all of this. In principle, I like the electoral college in that it gives smaller states a say in the election. That having been said, it may be more fair if the states gave a proportion of their electoral votes to each canidate based on the margin of victory. That's what they do in the primaries to secure the nomination for president. Each presidential hopeful gets a portion of the nomination vote based on what percentage of the state voted for him/her. So if 55% of the states population votes for you, you get 55% of the electoral votes. As it currently stands, whether you win the state by a single vote, or win a state by a 80%-20% margin, you still get ALL the votes for that state.

 

That's what I meant. I've been told by my newspaper, that its three states doing it still the old way, that is, the way it was meant to be and is the same way we do it with our "electoral college" to elected the federal council. Every elector has to be elected the same way as a representative and senator is. I think all other states changed the system to the benefit of the two-parties, as their permamanent reign was secured through this change. And that's why it needs a political earthquake for a remedy of this situation. Theoretically, the whole thing could be changed tomorrow, but it would mean that the two main parties would give up power and influence.

(Yes, I know that that in the earlier 19th century, they did as the Germans do it today, i.e. goverments chose.)

Edit: Dam it. I have a clear memory in my brain, that it's three states that have proportional systems, but it's actually only two. Did one state change in the last four years ? That bugs me...

To clarify what I mean

here

[ August 04, 2004, 12:40: Message edited by: Iago ]