As I print out materials from C-Span’s educational site, I followed their link to this pretty good article which explains the Electoral College system in such a way that makes sense to me. I thought I would share it.
Personally, I feel we should keep the Electoral College system. We just need to do a better job of teaching it to voters.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
I’ve always wondered if the electoral college is such a great idea why don’t we force it upon all these countries where we have been so involved to bring democracy to? I mean, if our democratic system is the gold standard why not?
I don’t recall electoral votes being tallied in Afghanistan, Panama, El Salvador, Croatia, Philippines, Iraq…oh wait a minute, Iraq is similar to us in that it’s the National Assembly that chooses the president. Hmmm, that has worked out swimmingly well huh?
Actually I’d be interested to know what other countries have their elections decided by something similar to our Electoral College and how that has gone for their government systems.
I think we should go to a popular vote, the electoral is system is divisive for the country and isn’t what we really push upon countries we want to head to democracy. And there’s something like a 1 in 100 chance that there would be a tie in electoral votes with the House deciding who’s president, now that’s just crazy-talk. With a popular vote there’s something like a 1 in 100M chance for a tie.
This site is interesting in that they get an aggregate of all the polls out there, give weight to those who have been more accurate and come out with a number.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/
The Electoral College SUCKS!…
Last night I watched CNN’s analysis of what it would take for McCain to win. They had a map of the U.S. with blue, red and beige states. The blue states are those projected to go for Obama, the red signifies states projected to vote McCain, and the be…
’m so tired of the Electoral College and the two party system. Once this election is over, I intend to devote a lot of my time and energy to efforts to abolish both. When did the U.S. become a bunch of red and blue states? How come my vote (as a Californian) hasn’t counted in 30 years? Nobody campaigns in California, New York, Texas, Illinois … those states are already decided. Why is it that the most important voters are in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and Indiana? Seems a bit backwards, doesn’t it?
See my “Know More” blog at http://www.jeremygoodell.com. The other day I posted an entry about the Electoral College that points out a bit of a loophole that could be exploited to win an election.
Hey Kristi,
I agree with you that the electoral college should be kept. Maybe tweaked a little. But everyone that complains about it should really do some research and learn why it is there. We would have New York, LA, San Fran, Boston, Chicago and a couple other big cities elect every president if it wasn’t there. So the person that says their vote doesn’t count in CA should think about how little their vote would count if we did away with it. They are overwhelmed by LA and San Fran right now and it would only be worse if it were changed to popular vote.
As a young country we set up this system to make every state equal in the “United States”. (Think about the name of our country) Our states rights were supposed to be as important or more important than the Federal Govts rights. Does Nebraska have the same interests and needs as Hawaii? Bet not overall. The electoral college let each state have an equal say in who they wanted to lead their country. Maybe it needs to be updated a bit to make it more fair. I think the votes should reflect the percentage voted for by the popular vote in each state. for example, Say CA voted 49% Dem and 40% Rep with the rest split between others. Why not split the electoral votes that way? I live in Utah. It didn’t really matter who I voted for because McCain was our guy. But, if we did it my way maybe my Libertarian candidate could have been a contender.
So you see, I don’t say that it is perfect. I don’t say we are perfect, BUT we are pretty damned good and we can and do change things when they are not fair or when they don’t work. The countries we have helped bring democracy to have been able to choose their form of government. That is why they are the way they are. We are not bad people. And in 9 out of 10 cases we have helped to make things better overall. We can take back this country and set it straight if we learn why things are set up a certain way and how to change things for the better. BUT don’t think that it will be better to get rid of this just because the election didn’t get your guy elected. Read your history!! Not the edited college version that makes us all look bad, but the real history of this nation and the world. Keep an open mind and then work to make things better, instead of just bitching and moaning!