Electoral College

amynicole21 wrote: Can anyone figure out why the US uses an electoral college rather than popular vote? Why is someone in North Dakota's vote less influential than mine just because I live in Florida? I've never quite figured that one out.

DansMom replied: Every time someone explains it to me my eyes glaze over after a while. I think there's a population density component. The rest of it is unclear to me.

coasterqueen replied:
IT is the population density component. DH explained it to me the other night but I have a hard time explaining it myself.

5littleladies replied: Yes-it is so the election isn't completely decided by the large states like California and Texas where there are sooo many people(which is why they have so many more electoral votes). It is to make sure the smaller states and people in more rural areas have a voice.

amynicole21 replied: I sort of understand that, but if the popular vote didn't entail breaking it down by state wouldn't it all work out in the end?

DansMom replied: I asked for a two-paragraph explanation from a friend of mine who studies this stuff aggressively. Of course, he wrote two lengthy paragraphs. I'll give it below it case it's informative.

In less than two paragraphs: Your question, whether you realize it or
not, asks about HISTORY rather than about current POLICY. I'll try to
devote one paragraph to history and then one to current politics (which
won't allow this to be changed at the core). When the colonies broke
away from England in 1776, in some cases individually and on July 2 and
4th of 1776 collectively, they were each independently sovereign
countries. They wanted it to remain that way even though people like
Franklin and Hamilton and Madison were correct in saying that they won't
survive without some coming-together for at least some purposes. By 1781
the little countries agreed to our first Constitution, called the
"Articles of Confederation," which made foreign policy and
ambassadorships centralized, but the vast bulk of power generally was
retained in the individual states. There were problems with this, so
less than a decade later they adopted the current Constitution of the
United States. This document, the way it's worded, still retains the
vast bulk of power within the individual states, though less so than
under the Articles of Confederation. The federal government yet to this
day has a finite list of powers, primarily found in Article One Section
8, and all else remains with the states. So the point of this first
paragraph is that states, not people, are the component parts of the
United States of America. And it's states, not people, who elect the
president. Indeed, until Andy Jackson's time, people didn't vote for
electors. Electors were appointed by state legislatures. To this day
any state can decide however it wants how to appoint electors. Michigan
could, by act of its Legislature, take away your right to participate at
all in this! By Andy Jackson's time, the states were allowing the people
to vote for electors, assuming these people were 21 and male and white
and had the minimum level of property ownership. You will notice on your
ballot today: it says you are voting for Electors For President of the
United States, not for President of the United States. Take a close look
at it when you're in the booth. If Michigan's people vote 51% for Bush
and 49% for Kerry, Bush will thus get 100% of Michigan's electoral
votes, because Bush's slate of electors will have "won" today's election
in this state. They will be sworn-in as officers and do their duty on
December 13 in Lansing (which is when they, not you, vote for President),
i.e., they will vote for Bush, and those electoral votes (17 of them)
will go for Bush, even if only 51% of the people of Michigan wanted it
that way. Because the states have different populations, it can happen,
as it did in 2000, that more actual people vote one way but more STATES
vote another way. For this to happen, though, the popular vote has to be
pretty close. It can't happen that 70% of the people vote one way but
the electoral college another way -- at least I doubt that can happen.

Second paragraph: Why won't this change and why is your vote worth more
than that of someone in North Dakota? Well, there's two prongs to that.
One prong is that the Constitution has to be amended, and that takes a
2/3 vote of both houses of Congress plus a 3/4 vote of all the states
(their legislatures). And the smaller states won't allow it. Nor will
the Republicans allow it. They have the advantage under the current
system. The second prong is that within this structure, other changes CAN
be made if the people have the political will and capital to do it.
Example, today on Colorado's ballot is a proposal which would require its
nine electoral votes to be divided up in ratio to the popular vote of
that state EFFECTIVE IN 2004! So a 51% vote for Bush would give him, I
guess, only 5 electoral votes and Kerry 4. If this race ends up being
close in the electoral college (in 2000 it was 271 to 266 with 1
abstention) which is only FIVE -- then there will be lawsuits on the
intriguing question "May Colorado do this effective in 2004 rather than
in future races?" Maine and one other state (forget which) already does
something like this under their state law. So that would be one way of
making things more fair but it's still not a direct popular vote. As to your second question: worth of individual votes: In North Dakota, the polls show that 65% of the people are voting for Bush. That's approx. what it was between Gore and Bush in 2000. Assuming roughly the same number of voters in that state this year, Kerry would need to get 80,000 people in that state to vote for him in order to get himself just THREE electoral votes (which is all North Dakota has). That's way too much for too little. It simply ain't worth
it!!!! In Ohio, however, get this: if the polls are correct, the state
will be tipped one way or the other by merely 10,000 votes! (Florida in
2000 was less than one thousand votes!) And Ohio has 20 electoral votes
compared to North Dakota's three. So the votes of the Ohio people are
worth a heck of a lot more than the votes of North Dakota voters. It's
not worth visiting North Dakota, nor advertising there, or anything.
Simple as that. It totally stinks. Notice how the same is true for Bush. He doesn't care about getting more votes in North Dakota 'cause even if he could convince a million more people there to vote for him (actually ND has only 600,000 people in the entire state, including children, but you get the picture) it wouldn't matter one iota in the electoral college, 'cause he already has
the three and only three electoral votes of that state (and he can't
squeeze more out of it even if two million people voted for him there),
so it doesn't matter, to either side. Currently, it seems that Michigan,
Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the big states that matter
the most. Those can be tipped by just a few thousand popular votes, and
they will yield lots of electoral votes. And for good measure states
like Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, these are small states
with only a few electoral votes, but they are quite even with the popular
votes and they may matter if the electoral votes are close. So those
people's votes are worth something too.

MomToMany replied: Thanks for that explanation Tracy!! It makes sense to me now!

jolene555 replied: funny you mention it because i just sighned a petition to have the electorla college removed. i think it is stupid for our nation to not go by popular vote. the colloege is an antique from the 1800's when people could not get all the information they needed to make a sound decision. i think that these days we get plenty of information thrown at us. the electoral college has gone against the popular vote 4 times in our history, and i think that is absurd!

sorry, but barry and i are both very passionate about this specific subject. if it screws up the election again, i believe it is our duty to speak up!

My2Beauties replied: Yes it makes sense but it still stinks. I think that the system Maine and the other state currently has is better. LIke if Bush gets 51% of the votes for a state with 9 electoral votes then he would get 5 and Kerry would get 4, I think that is the only way to make the system more fair. LIke he said the electoral college helps the Republicans too much!!! No offense to anyone, I just thought that what happened in 2000 was a crock of poop!

coasterqueen replied:
It might be so but it appears that you are still very sore about the 2000 election. Was it ever an issue for you before that? I think you need to try to look at the whole scheme of things and see that the electoral college has and does work even if who you voted for in an election didn't win. You are entitled to your opinion don't get me wrong, it's just I think you are basing it on one election...and one that you feel very strongly about because Gore didn't win.

((HUGS))

My2Beauties replied:
Well I do admit I am still sore over that one. That was the first election I was ever allowed to vote in because I was just 20 so I didn't pay much attention to candidates and whatnot as a teenager, however I knew of the electoral system through studies and always thought it was stupid because to me it makes us not a true democracy! Don't get me wrong I think it made sense way back when but not today, not when certain states electoral counts count for diddly squat!!!

Again, I am still PO'd about what happened to Gore though

redchief replied: Okay I admit I'm an old guy and I vehemently defend our constitution. That being said, I understand why dems, especially young dems, were and remain sore about the last election. But after researching the matter a little I was surprised at the equitability built into the constitution.

There have been four presidents elected who lost the popular vote:

John Qunicy Adams (Federalist)
Rutherford B. Hayes (Republican)
Benjamin Harrison (Republican)
George W. Bush (Republican)

In each case, with the exception of 2000, smaller states that would have had no say in how such a close election came out, made the difference (all differences were less than 100,000 votes nationally except 2000). In 2000, the smaller midwestern states overwhelmingly elected Bush. Most of the more populace states (including mine; NJ) voted to elect Gore. Florida and Texas were the two that went Republican and that won the day for Bush.

Even given that someone other than a republican lost those three elections, our electoral college installed every president we've ever had. Of the last 12 presidents, 6 have been Democrats and 6 have been Republicans. That's a pretty even split. Considering our nation is nearly split 50/50 Democrats to Republicans of voters declaring their party affiliation, that seems a pretty even split of power to me.

DansMom replied:
Redchief, everything you say lately sounds so reasonable and rational. Do your kids throw stuff at you when you're right?

coasterqueen replied:
Haa haa! That's funny and I agree with you Tracy.

jolene555 replied:
i feel like i am getting all worked up over nothing and probubly going to step on some fingers, but here goes . . .

i don't think it matters if "the whole scheme of things" work, but rather if any part of the election process in ineffective it needs to be changed. that's like saying the end justifies the means. i think it definately matters when as a population we chose gore for president, but the system chose bush. i believe our country would be dramaticly differant today had the system been better then. and my opinion is that had gore been president we would be in much better shape as a nation.

coasterqueen replied: Jolene,

I so respect your opinion but I truly fear of the thought of Gore dealing with the terror issue in our country....I truly do fear the thought...so I won't think.

redchief replied:
No, but that's because I have everything nailed or glued down as all such rational people do

redchief replied:
On point one: Re: Maine. Mr. Kerry will get 3 of the EV's for Maine. The last one's up for grabs. I have to agree that this may be a more equitable split. If that were the case in NJ, Mr. Kerry would get 8-9 and Bush the rest. I would like to see how such splits would have made a difference had that formula been used in each state. Very interesting

On point two: I must disagree that it doesn't matter how the whole scheme of things works. In fact, I believe our country works because the electoral scheme works for every state. Populists often forget that the federal government was never meant to rule the country, but to provide a central point from which the union of states can direct the country.

At any rate; I believe that you and I will never agree on this issue and therefore I shall be happy to agree to disagree. Peace!