01-06-2008, 04:40 PM
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While it is obsolete, the problem with American Democracy isn't the electoral college.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.
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While it is obsolete, the problem with American Democracy isn't the electoral college.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.