Terrible idea. Although I think many people advocating for this are well intentioned, the unintended consequences would be disastorous for our constitutional Republic. I hope people do more research and understand why the framers did not want “mob rule”, and truly found the best option to represent all people of such a diverse citizenry.
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Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The United States is setup with multiple systems of checks and balances so that no one person or one idea can ever become too powerful.
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The House of Representatives:
2 Year Terms
Representation based on the number of people. (The number of representatives is based on a state’s population). -
The Senate:
6 Year Terms
Representation based on the number of states. (Each state gets 2 Senators). -
The President:
4 Year Term
The Electoral College allows for both the number of people and the number of states to factor into how the President is elected.
Because each branch of government divides the ability to gain power in different ways, a more robust requirement must be met in order to get your person or idea through the system. When you hack these checks and balances apart, you end up with a centralized and consolidated form of power, which leads to greater corruption.
Think of the primary process currently used to select the candidate for each party. If you get rid of the electoral college, a party would likely only hold a primary in two or three largely populated states in order to select their candidate. A candidate for President would never have to leave one or two cities – possibly a handful of streets or city blocks – while campaigning.
The electoral college allows for a more nuanced candidate and less of a rigid candidate. The electoral college:
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Elects the most widely appealing candidate.
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Limits the winning candidate’s ability to replicate that campaign style in other branches of government.
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Requires a person or idea to figure out three different systems of gaining power with a more nuanced and well thought campaign style.
I wish you the best. Thank you for the discussion.
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Strongly oppose for many reasons. Here are a couple: If there were not electoral college the President would be popularly elected by a simple majority of all Americans and that sounds so good but it is quite easy to fool, buy or manipulate a majority of voters in New York and California and none of the rest would count. What would happen if those in the middle of the country felt like their voices no longer mattered? They would stop working and there goes your food, and other things you demand. All around it is much better to keep the electoral college, it has done a great job for two and a half centuries, lets allow her to help some more.
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I do not agree with eliminating the electoral college at all. Large cities / concentrated population centers are easier for local bad actors to manipulate and cheat. The smaller states would never have agreed to join the Union without the protection of their voice from the larger population centers. Eliminating the electoral college would require allowing smaller population states to vote to leave the Union,
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The names of presidential candidates shouldn’t even appear on our ballots.
First, consider all the problems that are a direct result of me, you, and all of us giving so much time and energy to this single office:
- As the only national-level election, it is a focal point to sow national division. Want to start an argument with a random stranger? Ask them who they support for president. There’s a really good chance you’ll be rhetorically ripping each other to shreds in no time flat.
- The presidential election distracts us from the state and local elections, which tend to have a more direct impact on our lives, and which we have more power to influence.
- Since we consider the president a “publicly elected official”, we have become complacent about presidential power. This attitude has carried over to congress, and contributed to the concentration of power in the executive branch.
- Finally, we need to acknowledge that most people don’t actually understand the constitutional role of the president. He’s not your representative; he’s an administrator. He shouldn’t be a vehicle for partisan interests trying to assert dominance on the country.
Second, the intent of the founders was that the electors would be the ones with the agency to decide. They did not intend for electors to be captured by partisan interests, chosen for their loyalty to a particular candidate, and compelled to vote a certain way.
This is incredibly clear to see in Alexander Hamilton’s description of the electors, in Federalist No. 68:
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice.
And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes;
Third, the Constitution makes no implication that the people are even to directly vote for the electors, let alone the president. Here is all the Constitution has to say about who selects electors:
Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress
The US Supreme Court put this very succinctly in Bush v. Gore:
The individual citizen has no federal constitutional right to vote for electors for the President of the United States unless and until the state legislature chooses a statewide election as the means to implement its power to appoint members of the electoral college.
Furthermore, some states did not put the question of choosing electors to a popular vote for several decades after adopting the Constitution.
My proposal is to double down on the electoral college, and abandon the appearance of a popular vote. Involve state legislatures more in the process, and give electors the authority to make decisions the way the Founders intended:
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Elimination of the EC is a dream of the left so that only the coastal states, which by and large are blue, would be able to elect the President. California is way more populous than is say Minnesota so 1 million votes in Minnesota is over come by 10 million votes in California. Look at New York. Same thing. They have a larger population than say Wisconsin does. Wisconsin votes for the republican candidate but New York with 3x as many voters elects the democrat candidate. That’s what the elimination of the EC would do. It does NOT assure one person one vote. It actually has the opposite effect. NY and California would decide who gets to be President while the smaller states votes don’t count.
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This is unfortunately untrue. The more the politicians can focus only on big metro areas and large coastal regions they will no longer focus on any rural or middle of country regions.
Do you think Iowa would matter at all in a non electoral system that balanced big and small state interests? No.
And our federal system balances state interests. We are not primarily federal residents of the USA. We are
Most fundamentally a family
Beyond that
in a neighborhood,
Then any number of voluntary community orgs
then a town
Then a county
Then a state
Finally a country.
More power dispersed to the local region is ideal.
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Terrible idea. Read the constitution and read the documents of the founders. This would establish a tyrannical oppressive system where a handful of communist metro markets would rule and set policy.
Better idea would be the dissolve the federal government and give power back to the states and let policy and government happen at the local level.
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Los Angeles and NYC have a combined population that is greater than 40 states. That’s why the Electoral College is necessary.
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Yeah no…
Constitutional REPRESENTATIVE Republic… look it up.
"The principle of “one person, one vote” is a cornerstone of democratic governance. "
We are NOT a democracy for the 1000000000000000000000th time.
“Democracy is two wolves and a sheep sitting down and voting for what’s for dinner”
-Ben Franklin
Democracy:
A government of the masses.
Authority derived through mass meeting or any other form of
“direct” expression.
Results, in mobocracy.
Attitude toward property is communistic — negating property
rights.
Attitude toward law is that the will of the majority shall regulate,
whether it be based upon deliberation or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to consequences.
Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
-TM 2000-25 WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON, November 30, 1928 (US Army Training Manual on Citizenship)
The purpose of the electoral college was to give smaller states with less population a shot at having an equal say in our national elections…
The key to understanding what we are and WHY lies not only in the reading of the Constitution but in reading the Federalist and Anti Federalist Papers; the arguments surrounding our form of government.
They are a hard read, but if you can get through Marx (as clearly someone has) you can get through these two works.
The founders knew what Stalin was to say years later; “one man… one vote… one time”
But thank you for playing
-Andrew Calverase
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Exactly right… the system gives smaller states a shot at having a voice in elections… much like what the senate was before Woodrow Wilson mucked it up… when one looks at it dispassionately the way the system was changed by Wilson the senate is now superfluous… its elected exactly the same way as the house; popular vote. The original design gave the states a way to have input. States had the choice as to how to nominate their senators… vote, appointment… all up to the state. Wilson moved us closer to the rubber stamp model the communists use(d).
Think Ill suggest that policy… unless someone beats me to it. Undo the 17th Amendment and allow individual states to go back to how they originally chose senators.
You see… from “errant posts” comes another awakening that will bring us back to how things should be!
Id like to thank the original poster for the opportunity!
-Andrew Calverase
Trey Gowdy did a recent podcast on it: The Power Of The Electoral Col - The Trey Gowdy Podcast - Apple Podcasts
Also Tara Ross wrote a good book (I have also heard her speak) on the electoral college: Why We Need the Electoral College: Ross, Tara: 9781684510139: Amazon.com: Books
It is necessary to keep our system of government alive.
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The purpose for the Electoral College was to prevent a handful of the largest populated states from controlling who our national officials would be. I read nothing specific in your proposal that would safeguard against this happening. If I missed it please point it out for me.
As it currently stands, the candidates are awarded electors based on a state by state popular vote. The smaller states carry a high elector count to encourage the campaign of the candidates which is how swing states came to exist.
Is it perfect? No. Is it the best option? Yes. Until someone comes up with something more foolproof.
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Absolutely not. Since this is a Constitutional Republic and not a true democracy, one person, one vote is not how this works.
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This facilitates nothing more than mob rule, where the rights of the minority are left entirely unprotected. That is precisely why our Framers despised pure democracy and left us, instead, a constitutional republic created to protect minority rights.
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I’m sure it is just a coincidence that the Sanctuary Cities/States align with the same areas that are highest in voter base.
Becomes simple math after that!
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Which in truth why the opposition wants it destroyed… centralizing control, elections, and decision making is what the opposition is all about…
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The US is a constitutional republic, there is no way that we want this policy change. The states with the larger populations would effectively silence the smaller states and populations. Not a good idea.
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The amendments cited give examples of expanded voting rights to those who were denied it previously… essentially WHO can vote… not HOW we vote. Its always good policy to ensure that those who are qualified to vote can vote (like US citizens …and… ONLY …US Citizens for instance).
And while voting in a democratic manner is a fairer way of gauging a consensus; “one man, one vote” does not take into consideration the rights of the states. There needs to be a balance to it all. States also have rights in our system; the electoral college (along with the 10th Amendment) is one of the last protections the States have left against an overbearing federal leviathan.
As many have pointed out here, a direct vote at the national level would leave us at the mercy and whims of those in the more populous areas… and if you’ve ever been in those areas for any length of time you would understand very quickly that would NOT be a good fit for the whole country. Its a simple truth that all of these areas are in a massive amount of debt and have policies that have led to skyrocketing rates in crime and whole segments of society in abject poverty.
-Andrew Calverase
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I like tenets of it… need to ponder it a bit though… I’m loath to give any centralized entity all the power through the dictate of federal law…
I like the idea that if state “x” wants to do a popular vote to grant electors to a candidate… its there business…
if they wanna draw straws or hold a hat drawing … that’s their business… the counter balance to a states methods in this matter would be (once we get back to honest elections) the voters voice in the states elections. If state “x” had a poorly conceived plan on how to select or elect electors, and or how to award them to a candidate… voters can vote them out in the next go around…
1 Like