The electoral college

[Jannabear]

Is there any argument for this to even exist, it seems pointless and it makes one person's vote worth more then anothers

[Atheon]

Yeah, I think it should be abolished, and the US president should be elected by direct popular vote, the president being the sole representative of all the people.

[Baruch]

The reasoning behind it, was for politics in 1788, which is so ... over.  But also back then most adults were ineligible to vote either.  Women, slaves and poor people couldn't vote.  This is why "originalism" is Constitutional interpretation is so wacked.

Direct popular vote is quite reasonable today, since the franchise expanded and technology helps collect the votes (and corrupt them too).

But think big.  We probably should have a parliamentary system, not a presidential system anyway.  Then the House or Senate would choose the President from among their members.  Or we could have the governors of the states vote for their favorite ... so kind of like the electoral college anyway.

I am not fond of direct popular vote ... the voters are idiots.

[GreatLife]

In order to add some data to the discussion...

Several years ago I remember an article from Richard Posner on this.  I could not find the article (it was originally published on Slate) - the link to it is broken on Slate.

But the Bangor Daily News also published the article - and it is still available on the web.

Here are his five points:

1. Certainty of outcome

A dispute about the outcome of an Electoral College vote is possible â€" it happened in 2000 â€" but it’s less likely than a dispute on the popular vote. The reason is that the winning candidate’s share of the Electoral College invariably exceeds that person’s share of the popular vote. On Nov. 6 President Barack Obama received 61.7 percent of the electoral vote compared to only 51.3 percent of the popular votes cast for him and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

2. Everyone’s president

The Electoral College requires a presidential candidate to have transregional appeal. No region (South, Northeast, etc.) has enough electoral votes to elect a president. So a solid regional favorite, such as Romney was in the South, has no incentive to campaign heavily in those states, for he gains no electoral votes by increasing his plurality in states that he knows he will win.

3. Swing states

The winner-take-all method of awarding electoral votes induces the candidates â€" as we saw in last week’s election â€" to focus their campaign efforts on the toss-up states; that follows directly from their lack of inducement to campaign in states they are sure to win. Voters in toss-up states are more likely to pay close attention to the campaign â€" to really listen to the competing candidates â€" knowing that their ballots are going to decide the election.

4. Big states

The Electoral College restores some of the weight in the political balance that large states (by population) lose by virtue of the mal-apportionment of the Senate decreed in the Constitution. This may seem paradoxical, given that electoral votes are weighted in favor of less populous states. Wyoming, the least populous state, contains only about one-sixth of 1 percent of the U.S. population, but its three electors (of whom two are awarded only because Wyoming has two senators like every other state) give it slightly more than one-half of 1 percent of total electoral votes.

5. Avoid run-off elections

The Electoral College avoids the problem of elections in which no candidate receives a majority of the votes cast. For example, Nixon in 1968 and Clinton in 1992 both had only a 43 percent plurality of the popular votes, while winning a majority in the Electoral College (301 and 370 electoral votes, respectively). There is pressure for run-off elections when no candidate wins a majority of the votes cast; that pressure, which would greatly complicate the presidential election process, is reduced by the Electoral College, which invariably produces a clear winner.

But of course no voter’s vote swings a national election, and in spite of that, about one-half the eligible American population did vote in last week’s election. Voters in presidential elections are people who want to express a political preference rather than people who think that a single vote may decide an election. Even in one-sided states, plenty of voters back the candidate who is sure not to carry the state. So I doubt that the Electoral College has much of a turn-off effect. And if it does, that is outweighed by the reasons for retaining this seemingly archaic institution.

Richard Posner is a judge on the, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School.

I would also add - there is an error rate on recording voters preferences.  You can easily dispute what this rate is... but no one will say it is zero.  So if you do direct elections by popular vote, you are going to have to have a secondary system to elect someone when the vote is close (within the margin of error).  Either more elections or some form of electoral college to break the impasse.

[Baruch]

I prefer Hamilton vs Burr ... flintlock pistols at 20 paces ;-)  That is a tie breaker ... if you are wearing a tie.

[PopeyesPappy]

The original reasoning behind the electoral college was as a safe guard against tyranny by the majority by allowing for the actual selection of the president by a knowledgeable few as opposed to the unwashed masses. The reason we still have it is because our popularly elected lords and masters like that way.

[Baruch]

The original reasoning behind the electoral college was as a safe guard against tyranny by the majority by allowing for the actual selection of the president by a knowledgeable few as opposed to the unwashed masses. The reason we still have it is because our popularly elected lords and masters like that way.

Same as the Democratic Convention having all those super-delegates.  When I was little, we didn't have all these primaries ... just older men in smoke filled rooms called a caucus.  Super-delegates is a way of undoing the democratic revolution of the 1970s.

[SGOS]

I was once told that the electoral college gives states more power in line with the big thing about states rights and each state assuming control over their own affairs.  That sounded interesting enough to mull over at length.  But in thinking about it, I haven't been able to actually believe that is true. 

In the end, the electoral college elects a president.  I believe his responsibility should be to the people who vote for him not to unrepresentative quantities of power based on some contrived formula that is awarded to different states.

I've always shrugged the thing off as some complicated mechanism conceived by greater minds that safeguards something or other and ends up making the United States system of governance better for everyone if only I didn't let it bother my little head. 

But now I'm not so sure.  When things start seeming convoluted and unnecessarily complicated, I start getting suspicious that some fancy dressed charlatan in a new suit is trying to bamboozle me.

[josephpalazzo]

I was once told that the electoral college gives states more power in line with the big thing about states rights and each state assuming control over their own affairs.  That sounded interesting enough to mull over at length.  But in thinking about it, I haven't been able to actually believe that is true. 

In the end, the electoral college elects a president.  I believe his responsibility should be to the people who vote for him not to unrepresentative quantities of power based on some contrived formula that is awarded to different states.

I've always shrugged the thing off as some complicated mechanism conceived by greater minds that safeguards something or other and ends up making the United States system of governance better for everyone if only I didn't let it bother my little head.  It does as most states have a winner-take-all.

But now I'm not so sure.  When things start seeming convoluted and unnecessarily complicated, I start getting suspicious that some fancy dressed charlatan in a new suit is trying to bamboozle me.

The main reason for the electoral college was the fear of direct election to the Presidency. People at the time of writing the constitution feared a tyrant could manipulate public opinion and come to power. The idea behind giving more power to the states has been justified in the winner-takes-all system that was in place, but now many states are moving towards apportioning the electoral votes to percentage, so that idea of giving more power to the states is waning.