10-24-2011, 10:11 PM
rjmacs wrote:
[quote=Ted King]
The Electoral College has already been changed by amendment - the 12th Amendment. That happened in 1804. Was the "flaw" they fixed more serious than electing a person president who didn't get the most votes? If so, why do you think so?
I'm not interested in 'comparing the merits' of constitutional amendments, Ted. I understand what you are asking, but i don't think going at it from this angle moves the argument forward. It's an argumentative parry to get me to defend or condemn the 12th Amendment, which is wholly off point.
The present question is: does the imperfection of the Electoral College process merit amending the Constitution. Nobody here is arguing that the process is perfect or optimized as it is. I have argued that it does not rise to the level of constitutional amendment, and you have argued otherwise. I think it's fine if we disagree on that point.
That is the question I was pursuing. You say that the Electoral College process isn't flawed enough to merit amendment to the Constitution and I was providing you with an example of when the Electoral College has already been deemed as flawed enough to merit an amendment as a way to illustrate that your claim is questionable.
You said, "We don't change the Constitution simply because we've figured out a better way to do things. We change the Constitution to remedy serious flaws, to guarantee specific rights, occasionally to change the powers of government." So either what happened with the 12th Amendment was serious enough to warrant a change or your claim isn't true. If it was serious enough, then why aren't the issues I'm bringing up serious enough?