"If the day ever comes when the American people are so stupid that they vote for a Presidential candidate who pledges to suspend the constitution, put Muslims in concentration camps, and rule by decree - all in order to better fight the war on terror - members of the electoral college could - and should - ignore their votes and elect somebody else."

Nice in theory. But if it worked that way in practice, John Kerry would now be President...
Dan Hill | Homepage | 04.02.07 - 4:05 pm | #

ok.....I'll buy #2, but I've never understood the rationale for #1.

EC votes are based on population. though I don't know the exact formula, large states have more EC votes, smaller states (by population) have less. In this sense, isn't the electoral college just a different way of getting at the pop. differences between states.

Furthermore, take my home state of PA. We always split nearly 50/50. But all of our EC votes go to the guy who got 50.1%

This is how someone can win the pop vote, but lose the presidency. I've heard the EC explained many times, and in many different ways, but it always sounds very un-democratic while still showing the same large state bias. (can anyone really argue that RI is as important as California due to the EC??)
Greg | 04.02.07 - 4:56 pm | #

It's a compromise, just like having a senate and the house. Every state gets a two vote boost, which helps little states more than bigger states. It probably also made more sense when none of the states could yield 50 votes. If we wanted to better preserve the point of the college, we could add more senator-votes, or we could ratchet down the number of total House members, from the current 435. Personally, I'd rather see the Senate expanded than the House contracted. I'd like to see the House back on something like the 30,000 people per seat thing, just because it would be harder to buy enough votes to matter then.
Bobbo | 04.02.07 - 5:04 pm | #

I don't like the way that the electoral system, with its winner take all effect, makes candidates focus on "swing" states while avoiding all others.

The Hitler analogy is not really comparable to the US system. The problem with Weimar Germany's system is that it allowed any party to receive parlimentary representation based on the popular vote. So if some crazy party got only 20% they got 20% of the seats. This led to a very divisive system of government. Interestingly, it is the exact same form of government that the US has set up in Iraq. I was horrified when the Iraqi constitution was drafted because of this problem and thought that having a district approach would be much more constructive. But the rationale at the time was mostly driven by time considerations and the rush to get a constitution done. Iraq shows the problems of majority rules that Cicero is rightly worried about.
Leonardo | 04.02.07 - 5:37 pm | #

All this good stuff makes sense, but I still believe we should not vote for a president/vice president ticket, but just for president. That individual who comes in second should be vp. Seems like it was that way at one time...
matt | 04.03.07 - 9:46 am | #

Matt,

couldn't agree more. That's the way it used to be. Along with direct election of Senators.
cicero | Homepage | 04.03.07 - 3:35 pm | #