Oh, the Places We'll Vote...

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Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Is The Electoral College a Good School?

What should we do about the Electoral College? Keep it? Scrap it? If so, how should we replace it?

11 Comments:

At 3:39 PM, Blogger Jordan Eselevsky said...

I think that we need to get rid of the electoral college and replace it with popular vote. Obviously, we don't want states with much smaller populations to receive the same amount of "say" as larger states, but this doesn't occur with the popular vote because everyone is equal. It isn't fair that almost a majority of a state can vote one way, but then all of its vote will go the other way because that particular party receives just a little more votes; this is not democratic. It is not fair that George Bush was put in the White House in 2000 as Al Gore received most of our nation's vote. We need to rid our country of this unfairness and apply the popular vote to elections.

 
At 8:00 PM, Blogger Jpo said...

I agree that it is wrong that Bush had won the presidency over Al Gore, although, Bush won the way the founding fathers wanted it to be set up. the people in general are like the the A.P. test takers in Texas. some care and some don't. therefore we need something in place to help guide us as a hole to who we decide should be president. saying that we need to keep it although work with it and edit it to fit the peoples votes.

 
At 8:27 PM, Blogger davey said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

 
At 8:29 PM, Blogger davey said...

well, in order to understand the premise of why we have the electoral college in the first place, it's important to understand that our founding fathers did not trust the masses to make consistently wise choices in terms of presidents; basically, they thought the people were too ignorant. This might have been a fair conclusion to make about the people of the late 18th century, but it is now the 21st century, where not only is information accessible in astoundingly greater amounts & convenience, but the individualistic culture that has brewed in our modern society for the last 60 or so years has fermented in the form of widespread discussion & forum, where everybody has an opinion. This is what the Greeks aimed for in their form of democracy. While there are still great strides needed to be made in public education and political awareness across the table in america, I think it's safe to say we're no longer the stupid, huddled masses we used to be. The electoral college is now simply an obstacle in our modern political scene, obstructing direct democracy and creating issues (e.g. bush stealing the 2000 election). I vote to repeal the electoral college.

 
At 8:21 PM, Blogger Alexandria Lee said...

I think that America has evolved and grown enough to the point that we don't need an electoral college to delegate and generalize what a specific population's view about politics is. As it was already pointed out, George Bush won the votes of the electoral college, but Al Gore won the popular vote. Obviously, something was unfair. The educational level of Americans has grown so much over the past few centuries that the average American at least has some idea of what he/she is voting for. We are smart enough to have a direct say in our next President of the United States.

Also, if the popular vote was the one that really counted, then Americans may feel that they have a greater say in deciding our country's president because their vote seems to make more of a difference when it is counted in the popular vote rather than the electoral vote because of each individual state's overall vote in the electoral college.

 
At 8:46 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

The Electoral College was formed under the belief that the American public was incapable of making an educated decision about who the president should be. They gave more power to a small group of politicians than the entire nation on the most important decision for the future of the nation. This is exactly why there is no trust in the government and a low voter turn out. How can we trust a government that doesn’t trust us, and why should we vote if our votes barely matter? It’s bad enough that there are so many people in the nation that our vote seems miniscule, but factor in the reality that the entire popular vote pales in comparison to the Electoral College and it is clear to see why no one is compelled to vote in this country anymore. Yes, the past generations may have been a bit politically inadequate, but it is truly my belief that we are now ready to obtain full control of the presidential election. JJ Chan Owns!

 
At 9:01 PM, Blogger SRobert said...

it adds a game and a strategy to the campaigns. if it was popular votes, our candidates would be touring more states than the Rolling Stones. The electoral college creates those swing state battles in Ohio, Florida, and even Hawaii to spice up the race. If we only went on popular vote, I think we'd have more voters who felt like their vote counts.

 
At 8:37 PM, Blogger Adam F B said...

Im actually indifferent about the electoral college. My original thought was that if more a canidate has the majority of the USA voting for him to be their next president, then he/she should be the next president.
Then i got to thinking about the reason that it was created, because it obviously wasnt established for nothing. In doing so, i realized that if would not be fair for say... a Californian born canidate who has been a senator or played a big role in that state to get 90% of the votes from his state. He would obviously get a ridiculous advantage by guaranting himself millions of CA votes. With the system, if that happens, he just gets all of CAs electoral votes, and the small states like RI still have some say in the election.

 
At 3:13 PM, Blogger Sean Madden said...

I think that we should in fact keep the electoral college. First of all, this is the way our founders intended us to elect the president and it would be extremely difficult, almost unrealistic to think that an alternative would pass Congress. At this point it is a topic that is being pushed to the back burner.
Regardless, eliminating the electoral college would have some other negative results. Candidates could simply target the big cities and areas with large populations and still win the presidency despite ignoring many of the states. This undermines our concept of federalism and diversity of all the states in our nation. The electoral college gives each state a chance at making a difference in the big picture of the election and forces candidates to reach out to all parts of the country.

 
At 5:12 PM, Blogger Steve Wolf said...

I think the electoral college is a total joke. Why don't we just decide the presidential election by rock,paper,scissors?

 
At 8:44 PM, Blogger jfeeny8 said...

I think that the idea of the electoral college is a joke. I do not understand why the popular vote is not what counts. Every one wants to feel that their vote counts, and maybe if they get rid of the electoral college, more people will feel that their vote does count. The whole Bush-Gore scandal was very interesting, but should not have even been an issue. The majority of the people wanted Al Gore to win, so he should have been put in office. But because of the electoral college Bush won. If majority ruling is used in most other aspects of voting, such as in congress, then it should be the same for the people too.

 

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