So you know that whole go out and elect the president thing? Well, it's not really that simple. The framers designed the Electoral College, which today is made up of 538 electors who officially elect the president. The process is a bit complicated, but you can take a look at a great explanation here (or a funny one here or, if you're feeling old school you can watch the schoolhouse rock version). There has been a debate growing since the Constitution was written in 1787 about whether the electoral college is the best way to elect a president. The criticism of the electoral college became more pronounced after the controversial election of 2000, which ended in a Supreme Court decision and George W. Bush's first victory (although Al Gore won the popular vote). A great video describing why many believe the electoral college is unfair and should be replaced by the popular vote selecting the president can be seen here. A recent poll found that nearly 75% of Americans believed that the electoral college should be removed and efforts are being made to try to amend the constitution to change or remove it. However there are many practical reasons why the electoral college still works well as explained in chapter 5 of this video debate titled "In Defense of the Electoral College", not to mentions the fears of faction in a direct democracy described by Joames Madison in Federalist #10. So now its up to you. How should we elect our presidents? Should we keep the electoral college or should we replace it with the popular vote?
I never knew about the Electoral College system until 2000. It made absolutely no sense to me that Gore could be the more popular candidate but still lose the election. Over the past 11 years since that election, I have learned about the Electoral College system in different capacities, but to be honest it still doesn't make too much sense to me. In my mind, it should simply be the most popular candidate becomes president.
ReplyDeleteIf the US doesn't want to switch the popular vote system, I think the Canadian election system makes a lot more sense than Electoral Colleges. You may think that I am biased, since I am from Canada, but in my mind I believe it makes a lot more sense. Let me explain for those of you who don’t know it. When there is an election held in Canada different people run in each riding to be the MP (member of parliament) for that particular riding. There are 308 federal ridings in Canada. Each person running to be the MP is apart of a party (unless they run as an individual). Each party has a leader. Whichever party has the most MP’s voted in wins the election and the leader of the party becomes Prime Minister. I think this is much more fair than the US system as each riding is one seat, and they are all equal. It isn’t that one party gets all 38 seats for being the most popular in Texas. This seems a lot more fair to me and also allows the USA to stick to the constitution and not elect a leader directly.
I agree with on how simply Jesse makes it seem in saying that the most “popular man should win”. The problem with basing who the President should be based on the popular vote is that there’s no way to know who truly is the most popular. This is simply because not everyone votes. This fact was seemingly neglected in the YouTube clip which fears the 22% popular president will win at some point in the future (I don’t think so). In fact, many of the people who will be directly influenced by the president (college students under the age of 18 who may need federal loans or grants) can’t, even if they wanted to. Now I am not suggesting that we change the voting age to 17 or 16, but this is an example of a mere drop in the bucket as a reflection of just who is the “popular vote.”
ReplyDeleteThe 2000 election which brought major controversy to this issue had only 111 million people vote in it. At the time there were about 300 million people living in the United States. Obviously this 300 million includes children and others who cannot vote, however these are just some statistics to consider when suggesting that the “popular vote” should win. I think the Electoral College is the most coherent system of electing the president as their vote is based on the people’s vote of that state. Maybe we need to reconsider just how many votes each state gets, but bearing in mind that if we make some states with low populations just have one vote (which is what they would deserve based on their population) then inevitably they would simply be ignored by the candidates (after all, they really wouldn’t have much influence). That’s right, I’m looking out for my buddies in Alaska and Hawaii. I say let’s keep the system.
I disagree with the notion that electing the President through the Parliamentary system would make more sense. In our system of checks and balances, to have the executive be picked out of the majority party of the legislative would be impossible. The legislative branch and executive were created to be separate entities and to switch to that type of system would counter what the framers were trying to do when they wrote the constitution. Additionally, I don't believe that selecting the President from the majority party would in fact be a better indication of the electorates will. There are numerous times when the congress has been overwhelmingly one party, yet the president is from the other party. The will of the people seems to often be different when selecting the national leader, as opposed to their representatives, and I agree Menachem that the college is important in maintaining the relevancy in smaller states. While i do believe that it is strange for a person to lose the popular vote yet win the election, I still believe it is well suited to express the electorates will and defends those that need the vote most.
ReplyDeletePosted for Zack G:
ReplyDeleteLike my many fellow bloggers, I had trouble understanding what the Electoral College was. Furthermore, what was its purpose in electing the President? I agree with Noam that in our system of checks and balances, to have the executive be picked out of the majority party of the legislative would be impossible.. If the Electoral College did not exist, there would be no need for people in Rhode Island to vote, because it wouldn’t matter. What the Electoral College does is create the 'swing states'. These are states, like Iowa and Florida, that decide elections. Candidates have to canvas these states from small towns to big cities to win them. Without the Electoral College, California, NY, and Texas would pick the president, and only the interests of the urban community would be represented. Agriculture and the rural community are important to our nation's economy, and without the Electoral College, these parts of the country would have no voice, and our economy would suffer dramatically.
Before one gets into whether the electoral college is fair or not, it has to be mentioned that one of the reasons people dont like it is because it removes the power from the actual person voting. No one likes begin told that they are needed to vote, and then have their vote superseded by another person. That is, what the Electoral College does, good or bad, removes the immediate connection between the voter and the person being elected off the table. Nevertheless, the electoral college is outdated and needs to be reformed. It just doesn't make sense that this system, which was instituted for a purpose (i.e making sure the presidency was formed in a proper manner, and only by educated people) would still be in place today. Electoral votes cause candidates to pay most of their attention to swing states or states with larger electoral votes (Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida all fit that same category)and alienate smaller states with less electoral votes (Idaho, Montana, Vermont). I happen to disagree with Zack G. wholeheartedly. How does a person in Iowa feel with his same federal tax (assuming he is in same income bracket as someone in NY)and same voting rights, that his state's vote is worth 7 electoral votes and the person from NY has a much larger electoral college (31). Also, not so sure how agriculture is such an important part of our economy.
ReplyDeleteA lot of people mention that the electoral college removes the voters from their vote's result. That would be the point. You don't have to be educated to vote; you just have to be over 17. So, the same guy who seriously analyzes the current political climate, the candidates and their likelihood at improving pressing and/or long-term problems gets the same voting power as the guy who's passed out drunk half of the day. The voting system that would make most sense, I think, is the one that John Stewart Mill proposed - the more educated a voter is, the more his or her votes should count.
ReplyDeleteBut then we wouldn't be a representative democracy, would we? So, our current system - the electoral college, I mean - strikes a good middle ground. One the one hand, everybody gets to voice their opinion, equally, however irrational it may be. On the other hand, people who are capable to make such decisions are able to weed out the "I love Ron Paul 'cos I smoke weed" votes and choose the candidate who is truly most capable for the most important political office on the planet.
I think it's instructive to look at Alvin Greene's case. Here comes some guy, unemployed, with no campaign whatsoever. He just had his name on the ballot - and he won the popular vote, at least in the nominating process. He recently decided not to run for president, possibly because he's also facing felony charges for possessing child porn. The popular vote prevents the Alvin Greene's (as well as the persuasive, likable demagogues) from getting into the White House. While that means educated people like you and I don't "really" elect the president, it also means that the "I'll vote for the guy with the nice shoes" crowd - which, admittedly, is much, much larger than we are - also won't "really" elect the president. That trade-off is well worth it.
Posted for David:
ReplyDeleteIn regard to the question of "how should we elect our president" I am of the opinion that the electoral college (or perhaps a similar system) is the practical though not preferred method. In other words I don't think that we should replace the electoral college with the popular vote. Allow me to explain:
As was mentioned by Menachem, there is no sure method of discovering the legitimate "most popular" candidate" due to factors such as low voter turnout. In the long run, this might theoretically lead to the election of a president who, while receiving a majority of the popular vote, was actually not popular with a majority of the population. However, that is a separate issue. The main concern here is that there never has been, and even with a direct/popular election, probably will never be a truly "popularly elected" president. Additionally, in the Federalist 10 Madison all but states outright that people will always be divided into factions, and suggests that as a result of factors like religion people have a natural inclination to have different opinions and divide themselves into different factions. This suggests that even if the electoral college was replaced by the popular vote people, or at least a true majority, wouldn't agree on which candidate to elect.
I also agree with Noam in that, while having a president who received a majority of the electoral votes but a minority of the popular vote is counter-intuitive, to have a president elected entirely based on the popular vote would be counter-productive. As Noam mentioned and is suggested by the Federalist 10, the framers of the constitution established a system of checks and balances to prevent an individual branch of government from becoming too powerful. Essentially, the framers were trying to avoid situations where one individual or group could dominate the goverment, including the people. Consider the situation and consequences if a president owed his election to the popular vote:
How could he be expected bring energy to the office if his energy is entirely derived from the divisive, opinionated, flip-flopping public?
How could he be expected to do anything without the approval of the public? He'd spend most of his time, especially if he wants to be re-elected, trying to please the people.
How could the president form a solid, informed, comprehensive, and practical policy in any area if he has to mold it to gain the approval of the mostly uninformed and
uninterested public, which would be necessary in order to gain their support for election and re-election?
And most importantly, what if the people chose the wrong man for the job? What if they chose a demagogue or someone who's simply a great people/crowd-pleaser and not
a good leader?
Luckily for us the framers understood these risks and compensated accordingly. While it may not seem fair to have a president who is seen as an elite elected by elites or even a member of the middle-class elected by elites, the fact is that this guarantees the election of an at least moderately qualified candidate. The framers knew that while direct democracy may have worked for a small government such as that of Athens such forms of government can only lead to anarchy and are not practical (similarly to communism - the fact is that a truly communist society is impossible as the examples of all communist states illustrate, and a direct democracy may work in small-scale forms like Occupy Wallstreet though even there we see the problem of inefficiency and every decision and "governmental/communal" action being a time-consuming process).
I firmly believe that the Electoral College system should be removed in favor of the popular vote. After watching the videos and learning more about the electoral system and its pros and cons, one idea really stuck with me. The way the Electoral College divides up electoral votes makes total sense to me, the more people the more electoral votes a state is assigned. However the reality that disturbs me, as Peskin expressed that not everyone’s vote is equal to each other. As the man in the video says “In a fair democracy everyone votes count equally but the way the United States does it violates this principle and makes some peoples votes more equal than others.” It does not make sense to me why this system is allowed, as we are a democratic country, shouldn’t the way we elect our leader be in the most democratic way possible. It would make a lot more sense to elect the President through the popular vote because everyone vote will be equal to each other. This will ensure that the blue-collar worker in Montana’s vote is equal to the investment banker’s vote in California.
ReplyDeleteThe Electoral College seems to me as an antiquated system. Once upon a time it made sense to give States more representation when a larger majority of people didn’t know much about politics. Or to give electors the power to vote for the state because majority of people didn’t really have means of hearing and understanding the President (because lack of media.) Or because there wasn’t really distinctive parties and each individual would just vote for a nominee from their respective state. Today more and more people are involved in politics, which can be attributed to the media and means of communication or maybe even to an evolving country with more educated people than ever before. Today there is a two party system and there are nominees and a process to be a candidate for President. Today with these evolutions, it makes most sense to have a popular vote-the most popular candidate should win. Misrepresentation of the majority is not democracy. They should at least make each individual district/elector be voted upon by majority instead of the majority vote wins the whole states electors. Then they can get rid of the Senator’s seats because it gives less populated states more voting power than they should have. But the fairest way would be for each individual to vote for the President with a popular vote. For the argument that the popular vote can sway from the voting days being sunny one day or rainy the next- just extend the amount of days your allowed to vote and make it more sporadic over a longer period of time.
ReplyDeleteBefore I begin I would like to go on a rant on how brutally painful it was for me to watch the explanation of the electoral college done by the Schoolhouse rock. I am one for cartoons but that really put a damper on my day.
ReplyDeleteAny ways I for one am for having the Electoral College. As confusing as it may seem, in reality it is the best way and the fairest way to elect the president. As my boy from Chi-town (Zack G) stated "If the Electoral College did not exist, there would be no need for people in Rhode Island to vote, because it wouldn’t matter. What the Electoral College does is create the 'swing states'." Without the electoral college majority of the countries states would not need to vote because states like Cali, NY, and Texas rule the population. The elect. College forces the candidates to pay attention to the little states and to the swing states. The electoral college system also makes the election more exciting, it allows us to see the strategies of the candidates and see if their strategies paid off.
I completely support the idea of having an electoral college. For the most part, I do not think that it should be reformed or abolished. If we were to abolish the electoral college, then the more popular states would have greater power in electing president than the smaller states. The fact that each state gets at least 3 electoral votes, gives some, such as montana, more voting power than if the electoral votes were determined by total population, which would give them only one vote. This problem occurred when the Founding Fathers argued over representation in Congress. If you gave each state an equal status to each other, then it wouldn't be fair to the larger states. If you make it based on population, the smaller states would have less power.
ReplyDeleteBy eradicating the electoral college, we are making the election based on population, which would mean that the most popular states (NY, CA, etc) are the only ones who have the power to determine the president.
If we have to abolish the electoral college, then we would have to reform the section in the constitution dealing with congressional representation, which most people would not want to do.
The electoral college makes it fair for every state during the election.
Some may argue that there are millions of people living in Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, and other U.S. territories, who cannot vote for president, because they cannot be represented in the electoral college. They argue that this is not fair and that they should be able to vote and have a say in who becomes president.
I disagree. These territories and possessions are not considered states. they may be considered as part of the US, but they have a different legal status than the states do. I therefore do not think that they should have equal rights to the states.
Now because they are part of the US, and residents from these areas are US citizens, I believe that they should at least have some say in the matter (beyond voting in the primaries. So I think that they should have at leas one representative.
Until they become states, they should not be allowed to have any more electoral votes than that.
As far as Washington DC is concerned, I think that it should be an exception, even though it is not a state, because it is located in the continental US, and it is where the federal government is located. It is only fair that the people who live in a city that houses the federal government have a say in the election.
As my fellow classmates have said, one does not have to have any sort of degree to vote. He/she just needs to be over 18. If we were to elect the president via the popular vote, these people with little political knowledge will hold a lot of power, more than they know what to do with. That will open them up to bribes and to vote for the candidate who promises them the most. What results is something similar to the primaries or caucuses in which the various candidates compete with one another for peoples votes. Often, the candidate with the best giveaways, wins. Multiply this for the entire country and what will result is a contest about who is able to "bribe" the most people to vote for him. Not inconsequential is the amount of money this type of campaign would cost. Faced with this alternative to the electoral college, I would stay with the electoral college as the alternative is fraught with problems.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Zamir, that the the electoral college system is a good middle ground. One major issue that I have with it is the disproportionate power that it gives to states like Iowa and New Hampshire, as candidates must spend an exorbitant amount of time there in order to secure the nomination (although perhaps this is more of a problem with the nomination process itself, not the electoral college)
ReplyDeleteI disagree with Jesse's suggestion that we should switch to something based on the Canadian system. The Canadian process is created for a Parliamentary system completely different than the US one. Switching to a parliamentary based system would require a complete overhall of Congress, Senate, and would be a significantly bigger deal than elections based on the popular vote.
I also don't understand Eddie's point- how would changing to the popular vote make it more likely that the candidate with the best "giveaways" wins and how would people with little political knowledge have more power? I understand that as an argument against mandatory voting (like they have in Australia) but don't really see what that has to do with switching to a popular voting system.
A system that I have proposed in the past as a compromise is a proportional representation electoral college. It is similar to the system in states such as Nebraska that relies a little more on population, yet keeps presidential candidates campaigning on a state level, which like professor Lowenstein, I feel is the integral element of the United States. If the system changed to a strictly PR system, candidates would only campaign in heavily urban and populated areas, never listening to the plight of more rural citizens. Like professor Lowenstein also said is it will protect us from the tyranny of the majority, or from a candidate that turns out can truly harm the country, which is increasingly likely in a PR system. Lastly, Lowenstein also states that in a PR system there is plenty of room for controversy like the one in 2000. There were plenty of votes including absentee ballots that weren't counted.
ReplyDeleteLooks like its not too late to post. Interesting, I finally understand how this system works. There are two points that I saw in the arguments for and against the electoral college system that stuck out at me and I think can determine what we should do for future elections. The United States under the constitution in its founding is exactly that, a union of states. This brings the question of what in fact is the essence of this country, the federal government that unites these states or the individual states themselves. The reason I am saying this is because this fact reflects the potential election systems of the United States. For a small government nation (state centered) the electoral college makes more sense to adhere to. This I presume would also represent the opinion of conservatively opinionated politicians and citizens. On the other hand if the country has gone the way of big government, theoretically a popular vote election system would be more congruent with the government type. This can be attributed to liberally opinionated politicians and citizens. I think in fact our country has become more of a big government nation (from my perspective and from the states I have been in and lived in- FL, NY, MD). Then again I have never been to Texas but I have heard that they are much more state centered. This is the sense I get, but Dan Lowenstein did make a good point that the majority of Americans dont even vote at all anyway, so this theoretic system is not as effective in practicality. I think the Constitution and G. Washington politics are the ones that work, so we should stick with that.
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