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Amendment to get rid of the Electoral College?

Should Congress create an amendment to get rid of the Electoral College?

  • Yes

    Votes: 15 36.6%
  • No

    Votes: 19 46.3%
  • Yes, but it could never get passed.

    Votes: 4 9.8%
  • I have no opinion.

    Votes: 3 7.3%

  • Total voters
    41
That's impractical and unworkable. Why should someone who is poor yet very knowledgeable and up-to-date on current events who would be a very informed voter not be able to vote while Paris Hilton can vote?

Because the government decides how to spend the money he hasn't been paying into the system. Since it's not his money, he doesn't need to vote on how it's spent.

It's perfectly fair.
 
Without the electoral college, presidential campaigns would necessarily focus on New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston, and a few other large metropolitan areas. Winning those constituencies in a straight popular vote would win the election.

The problem with that outcome is that it ignores the diversity of regional political interests. People in Boise, Idaho, have different concerns and different views on resolving those concerns than people on the Lower East Side.

The Electoral College forces a Presidential candidate to campaign nationwide, and to thus speak to (thereby highlighting) the broad spectrum of political views, interests, concerns, and ideas. The Electoral College helps to ensure that the selection of a President cuts across the broadest cross section of American politics.

Additionally, because the President is the one elected official that, by the nature of his election, is broadly representative of the whole of the American people, by retaining the national character of his constituency, the Electoral College is an important part of the checks and balances that constrains both the power of the Congress and the power of the Executive. The interests of a President towards obtaining re-election are intrinsically different than the interests of Senators and Congressmen, whom only must answer to their individual states and districts, and thus there is an ongoing tension and competition between the Congress and the Executive for influence and power.

Far from being irrelevant and irrational, the large expansion of Federal government influence and power since the Civil War makes the Electoral College more necessary today than ever before.
 
Without the electoral college, presidential campaigns would necessarily focus on New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago, Boston, and a few other large metropolitan areas. Winning those constituencies in a straight popular vote would win the election.

The problem with that outcome is that it ignores the diversity of regional political interests. People in Boise, Idaho, have different concerns and different views on resolving those concerns than people on the Lower East Side.

The Electoral College forces a Presidential candidate to campaign nationwide, and to thus speak to (thereby highlighting) the broad spectrum of political views, interests, concerns, and ideas. The Electoral College helps to ensure that the selection of a President cuts across the broadest cross section of American politics.

Additionally, because the President is the one elected official that, by the nature of his election, is broadly representative of the whole of the American people, by retaining the national character of his constituency, the Electoral College is an important part of the checks and balances that constrains both the power of the Congress and the power of the Executive. The interests of a President towards obtaining re-election are intrinsically different than the interests of Senators and Congressmen, whom only must answer to their individual states and districts, and thus there is an ongoing tension and competition between the Congress and the Executive for influence and power.

Far from being irrelevant and irrational, the large expansion of Federal government influence and power since the Civil War makes the Electoral College more necessary today than ever before.

Presidential campaigns now don't focus on every state. They just focus on swing states. Besides, why does it matter what happens to campaigning? I have never been to a campaign rally yet I can still make informed decisions.
 
It disenfranchises more than poor people.
Do you know how many businesses receive government funds and privileges not afforded to the rest of us?
Businesses don't vote. And businessmen still pay taxes.

They typically cast their vote for the person who promises the most benefits and those people haven't earned those benefits. Politicians shouldn't be able to bribe people with taxpayers money to vote for them.
I'd be more supportive of your plan if it didn't seem its main goal was to directly affect policy, as opposed to reasons of principle.

It is unethical everywhere else in this world, why is it not with voting?
How is it unethical? The politicians handle much more than taxes.

Poor has nothing to do with it. You can refuse government subsidies and pay a nominal tax to participate.

20 bucks enough?
 
Because the government decides how to spend the money he hasn't been paying into the system. Since it's not his money, he doesn't need to vote on how it's spent.

It's perfectly fair.

I guess that's where we differ, you want richer people to vote who may be uninformed while I only want informed people to vote who knows where candidates stand on an issue.
 
Yes, I realize all of this. If you are comfortable with it, then so am I! Let's do it, away with the electoral college!;)

Well, like I said, it doesn't matter; the removal of the electoral college might constitute some kind of moral victory for populist types, but in terms of how the republican polity works, no function of our political system would actually change all that much.

The electoral college in theory is supposed to protect against regional specific groups, whether a majority or minority, who are united in an interest which opposes the well-being of the republic in the long term (factionalism or its regional-specific variant, sectionalism). The actual explanation for how it does so is hard even for me to understand and cannot be easily communicated; it didn't work out well even in its own time which is why the 12th amendment overhauled the system, unsuccessfully to my mind since we ultimately had a Civil War anyway. The electoral college could never subvert factionalism or sectionalism, constants in every political system known to man and always present in the United States, as the federalists hoped; it is especially useless nowadays, when a universal media, highly developed transportation system, and mobile economy ensures that political ideologies are results of personality more than region. Simply put, liberals, moderates, and conservatives are lead all over the country, and while majorities exist everywhere, the electoral system provides a misleading estimate of where they are situated; some regions of New York State are very conservative, and put representatives in state legislates to that effect, and even in New York City it is not uncommon to have republican mayors or governors.

Part of the reason for the dysfunction of the electoral college is that the Founding Fathers, and especially Madison, underestimated the power of factionalism; it is an irresistible historical inevitability, as the immediate growth and intense opposition of the Democratic-Republicans and Federalists testifies.
 
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Yes. Because it makes no sense circa 2009.
No sense to the uninformed. The President wasn't suppose to be chosen at large by the populace.
 
Sure, if it is easy to do so. But I wouldn't waste much effort on it.



The Founding Fathers also intended for senators to be chosen by state legislatures, a breeding ground for corruption.

Oh, and they're less corrupt now? :roll: Besides, two wrongs don't make a right, and the subject is the electoral college.
 
Presidential campaigns now don't focus on every state. They just focus on swing states. Besides, why does it matter what happens to campaigning? I have never been to a campaign rally yet I can still make informed decisions.
Guess you missed all the ruckus about Howard Dean's "50 state" strategy, then.

And if campaigns to you are just campaign rallies....well, then it is hardly surprising you are an uninformed voter (you do vote, I hope?).
 
Not everyone knows what is in the best interest of their government.

And their government is very much willing to take advantage of their ignorance.

More importantly, ignorant people are easily led and believe the lies of their government which tells them what's best for their government is best for them.

Isn't it funny...the spoiled little brats from the Sixties who protested "the establishment" are the biggest pro-establishment hacks around now?
 
And their government is very much willing to take advantage of their ignorance.

More importantly, ignorant people are easily led and believe the lies of their government which tells them what's best for their government is best for them.

Isn't it funny...the spoiled little brats from the Sixties who protested "the establishment" are the biggest pro-establishment hacks around now?

Or maybe people just have different informed opinions. Just saying.
 
Businesses don't vote. And businessmen still pay taxes.

Sure but If you are an owner or somehow a direct beneficiary of a business you are still receiving benefits from lobbying government.

They will not be able to vote.

I'd be more supportive of your plan if it didn't seem its main goal was to directly affect policy, as opposed to reasons of principle.

It is about principle. I dislike how politicians lobby the people with promises of more benefits. Notice how I never said Republicans or Democrats.

They both game the system to get more votes.

How is it unethical? The politicians handle much more than taxes.

When a person votes based on how much money or benefits the are receiving from government and not on the issues that is unethical.

20 bucks enough?

$1 is enough, it shows that you are more concerned with our country and its policies than getting more unearned benefits.
 
One thing I want to point out to everyone who is against this idea because it will hurt the republicans is that McCain lost the popular vote by 7% while he lost the electoral college vote by around 35% so getting rid of the electoral college it would have helped the republicans.
 
And their government is very much willing to take advantage of their ignorance.

More importantly, ignorant people are easily led and believe the lies of their government which tells them what's best for their government is best for them.

That is exactly the problem, easily led and easily distracted with bread and circuses.

Isn't it funny...the spoiled little brats from the Sixties who protested "the establishment" are the biggest pro-establishment hacks around now?

It's quite ironic.
 
Well, like I said, it doesn't matter; the removal of the electoral college might constitute some kind of moral victory for populist types, but in terms of how the republican polity works, no function of our political system would actually change all that much.

The electoral college in theory is supposed to protect against regional specific groups, whether a majority or minority, who are united in an interest which opposes the well-being of the republic in the long term (factionalism or its regional-specific variant, sectionalism). The actual explanation for how it does so is hard even for me to understand and cannot be easily communicated; it didn't work out well even in its own time which is why the 12th amendment overhauled the system, unsuccessfully to my mind since we ultimately had a Civil War anyway. The electoral college could never subvert factionalism or sectionalism, constants in every political system known to man and always present in the United States, as the federalists hoped; it is especially useless nowadays, when a universal media, highly developed transportation system, and mobile economy ensures that political ideologies are results of personality more than region. Simply put, liberals, moderates, and conservatives are lead all over the country, and while majorities exist everywhere, the electoral system provides a misleading estimate of where they are situated; some regions of New York State are very conservative, and put representatives in state legislates to that effect, and even in New York City it is not uncommon to have republican mayors or governors.

Part of the reason for the dysfunction of the electoral college is that the Founding Fathers, and especially Madison, underestimated the power of factionalism; it is an irresistible historical inevitability, as the immediate growth and intense opposition of the Democratic-Republicans and Federalists testifies.

Good point. But regardless of party, the major urban areas would indeed determine the elections, I feel, due to increasing voter participation, even those who have no clue why they are voting for a particular candidate.
 
Oh, and they're less corrupt now? :roll: Besides, two wrongs don't make a right, and the subject is the electoral college.

Point is that appealing the Founding Fathers as a rationale for why we should or should not change the system doesn't make sense; they themselves were always disagreeing over the usefulness or authenticity of various features of our government and revised them themselves (see 12th amendment). The amendment process exists for this very purpose. Without the amendment process, the Fathers would never have adopted the Constitution, as many did so in the hope of changing things they did not like at a later point.
 
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Well, like I said, it doesn't matter; the removal of the electoral college might constitute some kind of moral victory for populist types, but in terms of how the republican polity works, no function of our political system would actually change all that much.

The electoral college in theory is supposed to protect against regional specific groups, whether a majority or minority, who are united in an interest which opposes the well-being of the republic in the long term (factionalism or its regional-specific variant, sectionalism). The actual explanation for how it does so is hard even for me to understand and cannot be easily communicated; it didn't work out well even in its own time which is why the 12th amendment overhauled the system, unsuccessfully to my mind since we ultimately had a Civil War anyway. The electoral college could never subvert factionalism or sectionalism, constants in every political system known to man and always present in the United States, as the federalists hoped; it is especially useless nowadays, when a universal media, highly developed transportation system, and mobile economy ensures that political ideologies are results of personality more than region. Simply put, liberals, moderates, and conservatives are lead all over the country, and while majorities exist everywhere, the electoral system provides a misleading estimate of where they are situated; some regions of New York State are very conservative, and put representatives in state legislates to that effect, and even in New York City it is not uncommon to have republican mayors or governors.

Part of the reason for the dysfunction of the electoral college is that the Founding Fathers, and especially Madison, underestimated the power of factionalism; it is an irresistible historical inevitability, as the immediate growth and intense opposition of the Democratic-Republicans and Federalists testifies.

The electoral college doesn't eliminate factionalism, it merely pits regional factions against each other. The 12th Amendment arose because of the unworkable nature of having the candidate with the second highest electoral vote serve as Vice President--it wasn't factionalism that was underestimated, it was partisianship.
 
Point is that appealing the Founding Fathers as a rationale for why we should or should not change the system doesn't make sense; they themselves were always disagreeing over the usefulness or authenticity of various features of our government and revised them themselves (see 12th amendment). The amendment process exists for this very purpose. Without the amendment process, the Fathers would never have adopted the Constitution, as many did so in the hope of changing things they did not like at a later point.
ALWAYS is over the top. One amendment does not constitute always.
 
ALWAYS is over the top. One amendment does not constitute always.
Actually, that there was disagreement among the Founding Fathers as to the best form of government is pretty much established history.

However, that does not mean that the Founding Fathers would necessarily have been in favor of frivolous amendments for transient reasons. In that regard they were all a pretty conservative bunch.
 
Actually, that there was disagreement among the Founding Fathers as to the best form of government is pretty much established history.

However, that does not mean that the Founding Fathers would necessarily have been in favor of frivolous amendments for transient reasons. In that regard they were all a pretty conservative bunch.

You consider the 12th Amendment frivolous?
 
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I guess that's where we differ, you want richer people to vote who may be uninformed while I only want informed people to vote who knows where candidates stand on an issue.

I want the people who work to make the system run to be have their votes count, instead of the current system in which a working, taxpaying American's vote is negated by a parasite's vote.

People who take largesse should be happy to get it, and not have the ability to vote themselves more of the same.
 
No.

Informed people can't vote for Democrats, not if their goals are Constitutional.

They don't vote for most Republicans, either.

You're wrong. I'm informed on the issues, and I believe my goals are constitutional, and I vote democratic.
 
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