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An explanation for us non-US people - voodoopenguin - 01-06-2008
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7171581.stm
Does this seem a fair way of describing the way things are done? Sometimes us non-US types wonder why or how things happen in the US so any form of explanation helps.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - laarree - 01-06-2008
Seems like a fair assessment to me.
Lots of Americans (including myself) consider the Electoral College to be irrational,
inane and anti-democratic. Its entire purpose is to permit the occasional anomaly
of an electoral college majority going to a candidate who did not get the most actual
votes (e.g. GW Bush in 2000), somehow allowing geography, history and the
idiosyncratic decisions of individual states (regarding how they allocate their electors)
weigh in on top of actual vote count. I say its entire purpose is this because if this
could not happen, then the presidency would always go to the candidate who gets
the most votes, making the Electoral College system pointless other than creating
some drama on election night and giving the winning party a vague idea of the
geographical spread of their majority.
America is very conservative about changing its Constitution (a good thing for
the most part), and both major parties would throw up huge obstacles to eliminating
the Electoral College tradition if somehow there was a true political push to streamline
and modernize our presidential election system, as this peculiar American tradition
has worked to each party's advantage on different occasions.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - spearmint - 01-06-2008
A simple step to renovate the electoral college would be as proposed in CA to divy up the state votes by popularity of the candidates and not throw entire state to winner. CA Dems of course fiercely oppose this and prevail. This time around could easily sway the College to the tax and spend party. A candidate could win CA by one vote and lose the rest of the country by 5% and win.
If the Ceremonial and Executive are greatly separated then Ceremonial serves no purpose. While I love the Royal aspect of Britain many here are puzzled without having grown up in that culture.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - x-uri - 01-06-2008
It is important to remember that the United States started as a union of diverse, and frequently disagreeable, colonies. The electoral college was, like our bicameral legislature, a compromise intended to amplify the influence of less populous states.
It is irrelevant today because of rapid mass communication and a very mobile population.
Few people identify as "Pennsylvanian" or "Massachusian" anymore, and inter-state rivalries and prejudices no longer figure as strongly in national politics as they did when the Electoral College was conceived as a method to prevent every President from being a resident of Virginia, Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania.
I might vote as an Oregonian in this election, and as a North Carolinian in the next -- and I have greater access to information about a candidate than any of the founders could have imagined.
While it is obsolete, the problem with American Democracy isn't the electoral college. The problem is the influence of the two major political parties who game the system. The electoral college now has exactly the opposite of its intended purpose. Instead of each state sending a slate of learned and well-informed electors to represent its interests in the selection of a President, most states simply award all of their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote.
Not only does this disenfranchise the smaller states, it disenfranchises voters in large states where a narrow majority can become a "mandate".
I would like to see the electoral college abandoned, principally because it would be a positive step towards diminishing the influence of political parties.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - laarree - 01-06-2008
[quote spearmint]A simple step to renovate the electoral college would be as proposed in CA to divy up the state votes by popularity of the candidates and not throw entire state to winner. CA Dems of course fiercely oppose this and prevail. This time around could easily sway the College to the tax and spend party. A candidate could win CA by one vote and lose the rest of the country by 5% and win.
If the Ceremonial and Executive are greatly separated then Ceremonial serves no purpose. While I love the Royal aspect of Britain many here are puzzled without having grown up in that culture.
If only Florida had a rule to divy up electors proportionally back in 2000...
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - Filliam H. Muffman - 01-06-2008
[quote voodoopenguin]Does this seem a fair way of describing the way things are done?
It makes some good points. My understanding is that the Electoral College was originally created because it was the best way at the time to deal with holding an election when it could take a couple of months to travel from one end of the country to the other. The Wiki entry on the Electoral College is fairly complete.
[quote spearmint]A simple step to renovate the electoral college would be as proposed in CA to divy up the state votes by popularity of the candidates and not throw entire state to winner. CA Dems of course fiercely oppose this and prevail. This time around could easily sway the College to the tax and spend party. A candidate could win CA by one vote and lose the rest of the country by 5% and win.
Republicans are drooling over the possibility of getting 20 more votes. I wonder if they would be happy if Texas and Florida also did the same thing and they end up losing 30 votes... It will only be fair if all the states do the same thing.
I think the Electoral College needs to be changed. I think they will be able to do it if there is another Democratic landslide in 2008 like in 2006 and they get a two thirds majority and a Democratic President.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - freeradical - 01-06-2008
It is true that getting rid of the electoral college would mean that one man gets one vote, but there would be other consequences as well.
In the 2000 election, Florida was not the only state where the vote was close. In New Mexico, Al Gore received 366 more votes than George Bush (source at link below), but there was no legal struggle over those delegates because they didn't matter. What if they did? If every vote is critical in a close election we could have a political catastrophe that threatens our poliical stability.
http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2000/elecpop.htm
If we got rid of the electoral college, the entire nature of political campaigns would change as well. Right now, candidates are forced to speak to the middle in the "battleground" states where the vote is expected to be close. This would change if we got rid of the electoral college. In my opinion, this would cause our politics to become even more polarized as the candidates would only be interested in their base.
I would like to see more than two parties too, but what evidence is there to support the assertion that getting rid of the electoral college would do this? I certainly do not want to see us become a parliamentary democracy. This is a system that is all about special interests. Look at Italy; they used to have a "housewife party". Their political objective was to obtain a government pension for all housewives.
Why stop at the Presidency? The real travesty is in how we elect our Senators. A voter in Alaska, Delaware, et al is exercising far more power than a voter in California or Texas when they vote for a Senator.
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - ho'ard - 01-06-2008
It's a good read, I don't see any gaping errors . . . although:
The US may have good reason to pride itself on being the world's oldest continually functioning democracy, and spreading freedom around the world has been one of George Bush's most cherished (and most thwarted) ambitions.was a bit hard to swallow.
Although the ever-present role of corruption was touched upon, I think it is probably understated in this article . . .
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - Lux Interior - 01-06-2008
[quote spearmint] This time around could easily sway the College to the tax and spend party.
The "Tax & Spend" party.
That's a riot!
Is this to be compared to the "cut taxes but still spend like a drunk sailor on leave" party?
Re: An explanation for us non-US people - x-uri - 01-06-2008
[quote freeradical]I would like to see more than two parties too, but what evidence is there to support the assertion that getting rid of the electoral college would do this?
Who asserted this?
I certainly do not want to see us become a parliamentary democracy. This is a system that is all about special interests. Look at Italy; they used to have a "housewife party". Their political objective was to obtain a government pension for all housewives.
As opposed to our system, where we have K-Street lobbyists so anxious to curry favor with the party leadership that they allowed a poisonous toad like Grover Norquist tell them who they could hire and how much to pay them.
As opposed to our system, where these lobbyists write position papers -- sometimes even actual legislation-- for elected representatives. Representatives to whom they have been granted unparalleled access as a reward for loyalty to one party or the other.
]Why stop at the Presidency? The real travesty is in how we elect our Senators. A voter in Alaska, Delaware, et al is exercising far more power than a voter in California or Texas when they vote for a Senator.
It is only recently that Senators have been elected by popular vote. And, of course, the answer to this concern is the House of Representatives, which is coequal with the Senate in matters of drafting and passing legislation, and in which each state has votes proportional to its population.
We could turn it around. We could repeal the 12th amendment and restore the Electoral College to its original status and function. A panel of eligible citizens, representing each state (and the District of Columbia), and chosen by whatever means each state decides. who meet in open session to vote for two presidential candidates. In order to be elected President, a candidate must have a simple majority of the electoral votes. The Vice Presidency would go to the candidate with the next largest number of votes.
Article II
Section 1. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected, as follows:
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: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each state having one vote; A quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two thirds of the states, and a majority of all the states shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.