United States Electoral College - Articles - Zimbio

Doing away with the Electoral College system

Mon, 8 Jul 2008 18:33:00 GMT

posted by gadflyonthewall
Former Massachusetts Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis is now lobbying to do away with the Electoral College system of electing the U.S. President and switching it with a straight tally of the popular vote. Will the Electoral College system soon give way to a simple counting of popular votes? Should the Electoral College system be replaced?

Sorry Mr. Dukakis, I don't see that happening. Indeed, I'm having a difficult time understanding your argument about how " a national popular vote would help a smaller state like Massachusetts have a bigger impact on presidential politics." Wouldn't a national popular vote have the opposite effect since it would encourage candidates to campaign only in the most populous states like California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Ohio and Florida, and ignore smaller states like New Hampshire and Iowa?

WorldNetDaily: Abolition of Electoral College unde...

Sun, 16 Apr 2007 19:05:00 GMT

posted by hscpub
WorldNetDaily: Abolition of Electoral College under way - Change would give control of White House to handful of states

Excerpt:
"A movement is sweeping the nation that could eliminate the Electoral College in national elections, and with it much of this country's republican form of government, instead giving unstoppable control over the White House to any coalition the major population centers would choose to create.

Maryland's state legislature already has given approval to a proposal that would, in conjunction with other states' efforts, eliminate the college, and similar plans have already been approved by single legislative houses in Hawaii, Colorado and Arizona. In seven more states – Washington, Montana, California, New Mexico, Louisiana, West Virginia and Connecticut – the plans have been endorsed by legislative committees.

And in 28 more states the proposals have been introduced while legislative writers in another eight states are working on plans, according to a report from the group called National Popular Vote, which is lobbying for the change."

http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=55064

Alex

Dropping Out of the Electoral College

Tue, 16 Jan 2008 16:31:07 GMT

posted by yanhast01

It’s really incredible that it took our nation over 230 years to realize that this was a good idea:

Instead of a state awarding its electors to the top vote-getter in that state’s winner-take-all presidential election, the state would give its electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.

Of course, this just means the 2012 presidential campaign will run into the billions of dollars. But at least it’s more democratic.

Super Delegates vs. Electoral College

Tue, 13 Feb 2008 14:22:28 GMT

posted by dacomputerman

Grand Pa's Republic

All of his life, the Tennessee Mountain Man has heard the call to exercise your right to vote. Even fighting in one of the country's wars was not sufficient in the eyes of many. Voting was some how more than a right, it was a constitutional requirement of any and every son of the United States.

That worked well while America's back room whiskey swigging, cheap cigar puffing, wheelers and dealers enjoyed an illiterate voting public. Then along came Sam! No... not the cartoon character, Yosemite Sam, nor the gunslinger immortalized in song, but our Uncle Sam. The uncle fed prodigiously by President Lyndon B. Johnson in pursuit of the Great Society.

Forget a chicken in every pot! What America needed was a new car in every drive, money in the hands and pockets of everyone to buy the junk food they craved... forget the government cheese. Every day of his senior years the Computer Man's maternal grand pa asked grand ma for some jingling money, and having received same set off for the county square.

Grand pa made sure he had in his pockets his sharpest folding knife, his old old pocket watch which he set at noon everyday with the sounding of the surrounding factory lunch whistles, a stick of cedar for whittling, a twist of King-B for chewing, and a little pocket change for jingling... grand pa was now prepared for his day, indeed for the remainder of his days.

Wearing his worn out gray felt hat, grand dad would set out walking down the street. The state had long ago taken his drivers license and his children had finally taken all of his automobiles. Not that anyone wanted them. The last one the computerman recalls had the startling ability to be hand cranked. One need not necessarily be concerned with the state of the battery. It represented the old man's last ditch effort at his brand of freedom and to have a car no one would take from him. It didn't work. He was simply not safe on the road nor was anyone on the road with him safe.

As he walked along his way, grand pa jingled the little bit of coins grand ma had provided for his pockets and sang old book songs from the Hardshell Baptist Hymnal. You know... they only sang the notes, not the words... yours truly never understood that, but I digress.

Upon arriving at his destination, grand pa took a seat along side the other old timers gathered outside the Jackson County Courthouse in Scottsboro, Alabama, just before dawn, and producing his pocket knife and a newly split piece of cedar that cost him two bits he began to smooth off the edges of the stick preparing for a full day of "visiting, reminiscing, conversation and piddling". Oh! The smell of that cedar, and the sound of his booming voice which reverberated around the square.

What does grand pa have to do with anything? Well, he was not always an old man ignored by most and simply forgotten by others. No, grand dad, a Justice Of The Peace in his day, was one of those back room shakers and movers in one party or the other in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. He knew the system inside and out. He was a ward captain. He decided who run for what office and made sure however he had to, including a little well placed hooch - and just maybe some of that walking around or as he called it jingling money, who got elected.

Grand dad used to say he was a republican for one reason and one reason only. I just can't remember what that reason was. Shades of the old man, I suppose. What I can be sure of is grand pa's generation never conceived of super delegates for either party. Not withstanding the republican and democratic parties are both private entities, and as such they can allow and restrict membership as they see fit. They can nominate and withhold as they wish. They and they alone decide who their power base, movers and shakers, and insiders are.

What has this to do with a democracy? Not nearly as much as grand dad had to do with politics in Alabama. As the Tennessee Mountain Man perceives the democrats since the days of LBJ to slide more and more toward socialism and the republicans to move more and more to fill the democratic shoes of yore he feels the need for independent involvement in the American Political process. A painful and foreboding journey to be sure.

Grand pa, although a self professed republican, always believed President Lyndon Johnson to be on the right track although improperly executed. He long wanted to abolish the electoral college in favor of the popular vote - the nemeses of professional politicians. Today, I often wonder how many times the old man has rolled over in his grave considering how dumb Americans have become as the state has spent more and more to educate the masses. It seems, the more we learn about less and less, the more we dumb down.

Along with the computerman, grand pa's question, today, I believe, would be "super delegates!... where in heaven's name (like that phrase? It stops the holier than thou crowd's sausage grinder dead in it's tracks!) did my republic go?".

Burk Pendergrass, J.D., a Cherokee Indian and Viet Nam Vet specializing in computerman website design and remote online computer repair

Earth's Greatest Democracy ... Unless You Live in Florida or Michigan

Fri, 8 Mar 2008 23:38:00 GMT

posted by grwiram
The current flap over the seating of Florida's and Michigan's delegates at the national conventions of their respective national political parties makes it seem like an issue that's exclusive to the Democrat Party. That's because the nearly indistinguishable politics of the Left and Lefter Presidential Candidates of that party has resulted in them both scrambling to find some leverage to give themselves a winning advantage. However, this is a much broader topic that merits the interest of Americans of every political stripe.

We touched on this in an earlier posting, entitled "It ain't over ... 'til its Beginning?! ". There, we pointed out the inappropriate impact of the Iowa Caucuses on the slate of Presidential Candidates that voters in other States would get to consider. The key question we posed was, "Why should fewer than 100,000 Iowa Republicans and fewer than 200,000 Iowa Democrats have such sway over the 300 million of us living in the U.S.?" From there, we went on to note that, though we see this as a flawed beginning to the current process, there are many other flaws in the process sorely needing change. What we see as the most flawed part of the process is at the end ... the Electoral College. Our illustration of this came from our former home, Orange County, California. In the 2004 Presidential Election it was the "Reddest County" in the nation and though that "Reddest County" had a population of over 3 million, not one Electoral Vote from California was cast for President Bush.

So, we see this latest flap as just that ... the latest flap ... over Earth's Greatest Democracy not living up to its self-image. Since "majority rule" is a major principle of Democracy, we can't legitimately define ourselves that way if everyone doesn't get to participate equally. And, since the form of government in our Democracy is a Presidential Republic, how is it that political parties are dictating the terms of participation for the voting citizens of sovereign States?

With that said, our perspective is that each State should determine how their respective primaries or caucuses are to be conducted and any political party wanting to participate should simply comply. We do recognize the national interest in and need for conducting this process in an organized manner across the 50 States, though. But that certainly seems attainable. There are a number of reasonable approaches to this, including Time Zone groupings.

Finally, there's the matter of the general election. The Electoral College was meant for a U.S. of a different time. However, the Electoral College emerged out of the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and making the assumption that all that wisdom has expired may be, in itself, unwise. Still, major revision is called for, at the very least. Though no "universally accepted" definition of Democracy exists, surely we can find a far better way to set an example of being what we claim to be ... the Greatest Democracy on the face of the Earth.