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- "If there was anybody whom everyone trusted enough to second guess the elections, to look at voters’ motivations and fuzzy ideas of fairness you wouldn’t need

- "If there was anybody whom everyone trusted enough to second guess the elections, to look at voters’ motivations and fuzzy ideas of fairness you wouldn’t need elections." Lawrence Lessig (well known to HN for his open source law work) proposed that the US Electoral College was created with the purpose of second-guessing elections. (He didn't like the outcome of the 2016 one and was trying to rationalize mechanisms of overturning it). Lessig: - "The framers believed, as Alexander Hamilton put it, that "the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the [president]." But no nation had ever tried that idea before. So the framers created a safety valve on the people's choice. Like a judge reviewing a jury verdict, where the people voted, the electoral college was intended to confirm — or not — the people's choice. Electors were to apply, in Hamilton's words, "a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice" — and then decide. The Constitution says nothing about "winner take all." It says nothing to suggest that electors' freedom should be constrained in any way. Instead, their wisdom — about whether to overrule "the people" or not — was to be free of political control yet guided by democratic values. They were to be citizens exercising judgment, not cogs turning a wheel." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-constitution-lets-the-electoral-college-choose-the-winner-they-should-choose-clinton/2016/11/24/0f431828-b0f7-11e6-8616-52b15787add0_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-constitution-let... ("The Constitution lets the electoral college choose the winner. They should choose Clinton")

afthonos 2y ago
I actually think the electoral college is a solution to a problem so obvious to anyone living then that no one really thought to name it: validating an election. It’s 1789, and you’re designing a voting-based system. You’ve decided each state gets votes proportional to its population in the presidential election. How do you validate that the result you got from Georgia, two weeks’ travel from NYC, is trustworthy? Seals? They can be tampered with. What about special messengers? Someone could impersonate them. Solution: send dignitaries that can vouch for each other. The elite of neighboring states is likely to know each other, and you establish a chain of trust up and down the coast. Great! Except these are people with better things to do than to be errand boys. There has to be something in it for them. Solution: they get to cast the final ballot for President. They are electors. (This is a theory that I have not validated at all, to be clear.)
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  An adjacent point is that states are free to run their elections as they see fit with relatively few rules. For example most states have a winner-take-all result for presidential elections where a guy who gets 51% of the vote get 100% of the 'seats', so to speak. But that's not necessary - Maine and Nebraska, by contrast, have proportional systems, where they split their vote proportionally. So how to interpret the results from one state could be quite different (and potentially subject to rapid change) even if you know the results were genuine. So the results of states always would need to be converted, by the states, into e.g. 15 final votes. So the electoral college emerges quite naturally in this context.
  - Tyrannosaur 2y ago
    Slight correction- Maine and Nebraska do not have proportional systems; they both use the Congressional District Method. Each congressional district votes plurality for an elector, and the 2 remaining electors go to the statewide plurality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Congressional_district_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...
- int_19h 2y ago
  EC was, first and foremost, an easy way to bolt the (already-agreed for the House) 3/5 Compromise onto presidential elections.
rayiner 2y ago
He’s not wrong in that point. But in modern times, electors are chosen by the party or the candidate. Historically, they were chosen by elected state legislatures. Either way, there was a pretty short chain of trust between the voters and the electors. That trust isn’t there when the oversight is from random people at an election commission or law enforcement agency.
Terr_ 2y ago
[flagged]
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  You're disappointed because that's not what the Electoral College is for at all. No, the purpose of the Electoral College is actually very simple: Guarantee States' sovereign rights for Presidential elections in a way that every State agrees (Congressional representation!), while maintaining the clear separation between Executive and Legislative branches.
- barney54 2y ago
  How has the Electoral College failed twice?

afthonos 2y ago

I actually think the electoral college is a solution to a problem so obvious to anyone living then that no one really thought to name it: validating an election. It’s 1789, and you’re designing a voting-based system. You’ve decided each state gets votes proportional to its population in the presidential election. How do you validate that the result you got from Georgia, two weeks’ travel from NYC, is trustworthy? Seals? They can be tampered with. What about special messengers? Someone could impersonate them. Solution: send dignitaries that can vouch for each other. The elite of neighboring states is likely to know each other, and you establish a chain of trust up and down the coast. Great! Except these are people with better things to do than to be errand boys. There has to be something in it for them. Solution: they get to cast the final ballot for President. They are electors. (This is a theory that I have not validated at all, to be clear.)

ANewFormation 2y ago
An adjacent point is that states are free to run their elections as they see fit with relatively few rules. For example most states have a winner-take-all result for presidential elections where a guy who gets 51% of the vote get 100% of the 'seats', so to speak. But that's not necessary - Maine and Nebraska, by contrast, have proportional systems, where they split their vote proportionally. So how to interpret the results from one state could be quite different (and potentially subject to rapid change) even if you know the results were genuine. So the results of states always would need to be converted, by the states, into e.g. 15 final votes. So the electoral college emerges quite naturally in this context.
- Tyrannosaur 2y ago
  Slight correction- Maine and Nebraska do not have proportional systems; they both use the Congressional District Method. Each congressional district votes plurality for an elector, and the 2 remaining electors go to the statewide plurality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_College#Congressional_district_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Electoral_Colleg...
int_19h 2y ago
EC was, first and foremost, an easy way to bolt the (already-agreed for the House) 3/5 Compromise onto presidential elections.

rayiner 2y ago

He’s not wrong in that point. But in modern times, electors are chosen by the party or the candidate. Historically, they were chosen by elected state legislatures. Either way, there was a pretty short chain of trust between the voters and the electors. That trust isn’t there when the oversight is from random people at an election commission or law enforcement agency.

Terr_ 2y ago

[flagged]

Dalewyn 2y ago
You're disappointed because that's not what the Electoral College is for at all. No, the purpose of the Electoral College is actually very simple: Guarantee States' sovereign rights for Presidential elections in a way that every State agrees (Congressional representation!), while maintaining the clear separation between Executive and Legislative branches.
barney54 2y ago
How has the Electoral College failed twice?