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Nice low-effort comment punk. The electoral college was created as a part of the three fifths compromise. In order to get southern states on board, the framers

Nice low-effort comment punk. The electoral college was created as a part of the three fifths compromise. In order to get southern states on board, the framers needed to find a clever way to count slaves as population without letting them vote. Three-fifths plus the electoral college let them do that. It's an ugly hack that should be patched. And don't give me any of that "republic" crap. As if anyone has any idea who their electors are, or cares. No voter honestly thinks they are selecting an elector qualified to relay popular opinion to the government. They're voting for the president. The EC was imagined in an era where people thought the government would be more a federation of states than a central government. That is not what we have today. The system does not make sense in the current context. Maybe you'll play the "regional interests" card. Sure. Is it any more fair that a minority candidate can be elected by the less populous states, rather than having a majority candidate elected by the more populous states? No. It's a facile argument that falls apart with any examination. Given the poor modern justification for the EC, and all of the negative externalities it causes (election of less popular candidates, voter suppression and apathy in partisan states, etc.), it deserves to be abolished.

erichocean 10y ago
The problem with abandoning the electoral college is that it would violate the original principle[0], namely that the President should be elected by both a population-based and state-based mechanism. So unless we want to repudiate that founding principle, the electoral college is still the way to achieve that balance (then and now). The electoral college is not racist, either. The 3/5 compromise of course came into any situation where population was considered (including the electoral college), as the country still had slavery at the time. We no longer have that compromise: blacks, women, men without land, etc. can all vote in 2016. Abandoning the electoral college would just weaken the States, and if that's the plan, we might as well abolish the Senate too—it exists because of the exact same principle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat... > In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two modes.

erichocean 10y ago

The problem with abandoning the electoral college is that it would violate the original principle[0], namely that the President should be elected by both a population-based and state-based mechanism. So unless we want to repudiate that founding principle, the electoral college is still the way to achieve that balance (then and now). The electoral college is not racist, either. The 3/5 compromise of course came into any situation where population was considered (including the electoral college), as the country still had slavery at the time. We no longer have that compromise: blacks, women, men without land, etc. can all vote in 2016. Abandoning the electoral college would just weaken the States, and if that's the plan, we might as well abolish the Senate too—it exists because of the exact same principle. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States)#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_Stat... > In Federalist No. 39, Madison argued the Constitution was designed to be a mixture of state-based and population-based government. Congress would have two houses: the state-based Senate and the population-based House of Representatives. Meanwhile, the president would be elected by a mixture of the two modes.