With the upcoming elections I am just curious as to the opinions on the electorial college system of electing a president.
Looking back at the last election, the popular vote was pretty close, while looking at a US map of states won, would clearly give GWB a landslide!
Giving each state one vote, would be very unfair to the larger states, so that would be out of the question! On the other hand, a "popular vote" is a little unfair to many smaller states. The electorial college, gives us somewhat of a balance between large urban states, and smaller rural states.
So to me the electorial college is still the best way to go!
What do you think? Popular vote, or electorial college? Or any better ideas?
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Absolutely critical to our system of govt the Electoral College is.
Back in 2000 we had long discussions on this and everyone concluded I believe that its the only way the little guys, the rural areas etc etc have any power or will ever get recognition.
If there was no EC, tere would be 25-30 crucial states and none of the others would matter
I think one electoral vote should represent a specific number of US citizens, instead of residence. That would take several votes away from NY, Cali, and Florida.
Without the electoral system, we would have been a hard left socialist country long ago. The few big cities in the country would control the elections.
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RE: Electorial College or not?
I have to disagree.
When the electoral college was introduced, over 200 years ago, the system had great merit. Southern states were sparsely populated, driven by trade cities and plantation owners. It was these plantation owners who paid the majority of taxes...hence, it only reasoned that these citizens (with the Romans they were the ruling bishops) received a fair say in the election, therefore the electoral college system.
However, in modern times, the federal taxes are levied equally amongst us all. It does not matter if you live in a rural or urban area...taxes are levied according to income and assets.
The electoral college, in essence, detracts voters from going to the polls. They---the minority non-voting registrants---realize that a large portion of their votes do not count. Hence, in states with very liberal cities, such as NYC, LA, Chicago, etcetera...many Republican voters stay home because they know their votes will be lost.
Do away with the electoral college and make the motto, "every vote counts", mean something in this modern age...and hopefully we would watch the number of registered voters actually voting rise above 50% nationally...
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Electorial College or not?
