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> Advantages of this proposal > * Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College. I think we may be sort of putting the cart before th

by yakiv 14y ago

> Advantages of this proposal > * Preserves the historic structure and function of the Electoral College. I think we may be sort of putting the cart before the horse here. The purpose of the electoral college was to get the states to agree to adopt the system (right?). Now we're supposed to preserve the thing meant to get the states to agree by destroying the states?

just2n 14y ago
No, the point of the electoral college was to elect a set of representatives that would make the journey to DC to cast their votes to elect the president. You have to realize when the US was formed that traveling from California to DC wasn't a quick plane flight, and we didn't have communications technology that could transmit information from one point in our country to any other point in milliseconds. The electoral college is no longer necessary, and should be abolished as it only causes problems that were acceptable in the 1800s, but are no longer acceptable today.
- talmand 14y ago
  I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place.
  - just2n 14y ago
    > I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. They were still spread out over thousands of miles of coastline. You're not going to deliver votes efficiently even if you constrict the entire country to the size of a state like New York, because transportation was human/animal powered at the time. This is the historical justification. >I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. Education and dissemination of information makes the problems more widely understood, but it was unlikely that the decision was made by people who understood the flaws in the voting systems, as major theoretical study into voting systems didn't really take off until the mid-late 1800s, and that information wasn't publicly disseminated until the 1900s. It "just worked" and was simple, so it was justifiable. These days, we can easily educate ourselves by reading public work in voting theory and see how mathematically bad such a voting system is. As well, the justifications needed to make electors a necessity no longer exist. This leads to problems as we've already discussed here, such as EC leading to roundoff errors and enabling gerrymandering, which are well understood PROBLEMS caused by the system. So what was acceptable then is no longer acceptable. > I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place. This was in a time when the federal government hadn't expanded its role and power, so I highly doubt that argument would've held much weight. Federal systems were in place to prevent that, and it was very, very clear in the constitution that the federal government was to be extremely limited in power, while most power was reserved for states. Every state had equal representation in the senate, amending the constitution wouldn't happen just because one state has more people than another, since their voting power wouldn't influence those systems, so it's hard to see how having more people means you can "rule over" smaller, less populous states. The constitution just doesn't permit it. And they still made the electoral college proportionate to the number of people in the state, so that wouldn't have actually prevented what you mention -- the federal framework would've. Except they did the math wrong, and smaller, less populous states have more voting power, and due to problems the electoral college causes, states that are pretty evenly split along party lines, especially less populous ones, are the only important states in any given election, and receive significantly more congressional concessions to win votes. So the electoral college has created a favor imbalance (not really a power imbalance) that results in some states being pampered by congress, while others (particularly large, populous ones) are left to fester, which I'd argue is a pretty crappy outcome if the system was intended to do anything about that.
- afterburner 14y ago
  I don't believe that was the main concern at the time, what I've read from the arguments at the time was that the electors (the guys in the Electoral College) were supposed to be people you had voted for that you trusted to make the right decision about who should be president. This sounds silly now, but at the time they really thought that they could avoid having a party system (or at least many people thought this), and they also wanted to separate the choice of president from the uniformed rabble of the masses. Not that that conceit survived contact with reality...
  - just2n 14y ago
    I'd agree that would be a legitimate concern of the time, but I think that still agrees with my argument, given how easy it is to educate yourself on issues today.

by yakiv 14y ago

just2n 14y ago

No, the point of the electoral college was to elect a set of representatives that would make the journey to DC to cast their votes to elect the president. You have to realize when the US was formed that traveling from California to DC wasn't a quick plane flight, and we didn't have communications technology that could transmit information from one point in our country to any other point in milliseconds. The electoral college is no longer necessary, and should be abolished as it only causes problems that were acceptable in the 1800s, but are no longer acceptable today.

talmand 14y ago
I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place.
- just2n 14y ago
  > I think you're reaching a bit here. When the Constitution was written there were thirteen states along the East coast. There was no California for an elector to travel from to go to D.C. to cast their vote. I have never heard of the travel time as a reason for the inclusion of the Electoral College in the Constitution. I seriously doubt that's a justifiable reason for such a thing. They were still spread out over thousands of miles of coastline. You're not going to deliver votes efficiently even if you constrict the entire country to the size of a state like New York, because transportation was human/animal powered at the time. This is the historical justification. >I'm curious as to what problems the EC causes that you state were acceptable in the 1800s but are no longer acceptable today. From my perspective the problems would most likely be political in nature. So any problems that existed 200 years ago would much be the same today. Education and dissemination of information makes the problems more widely understood, but it was unlikely that the decision was made by people who understood the flaws in the voting systems, as major theoretical study into voting systems didn't really take off until the mid-late 1800s, and that information wasn't publicly disseminated until the 1900s. It "just worked" and was simple, so it was justifiable. These days, we can easily educate ourselves by reading public work in voting theory and see how mathematically bad such a voting system is. As well, the justifications needed to make electors a necessity no longer exist. This leads to problems as we've already discussed here, such as EC leading to roundoff errors and enabling gerrymandering, which are well understood PROBLEMS caused by the system. So what was acceptable then is no longer acceptable. > I'm not the biggest fan of the EC but I believe it more desirable than true Democracy, as that only leads to mob rule. In that case the states with the highest populations would be in a position to rule over the smaller, less populated states. This was part of the debate of the EC in the first place. This was in a time when the federal government hadn't expanded its role and power, so I highly doubt that argument would've held much weight. Federal systems were in place to prevent that, and it was very, very clear in the constitution that the federal government was to be extremely limited in power, while most power was reserved for states. Every state had equal representation in the senate, amending the constitution wouldn't happen just because one state has more people than another, since their voting power wouldn't influence those systems, so it's hard to see how having more people means you can "rule over" smaller, less populous states. The constitution just doesn't permit it. And they still made the electoral college proportionate to the number of people in the state, so that wouldn't have actually prevented what you mention -- the federal framework would've. Except they did the math wrong, and smaller, less populous states have more voting power, and due to problems the electoral college causes, states that are pretty evenly split along party lines, especially less populous ones, are the only important states in any given election, and receive significantly more congressional concessions to win votes. So the electoral college has created a favor imbalance (not really a power imbalance) that results in some states being pampered by congress, while others (particularly large, populous ones) are left to fester, which I'd argue is a pretty crappy outcome if the system was intended to do anything about that.
afterburner 14y ago
I don't believe that was the main concern at the time, what I've read from the arguments at the time was that the electors (the guys in the Electoral College) were supposed to be people you had voted for that you trusted to make the right decision about who should be president. This sounds silly now, but at the time they really thought that they could avoid having a party system (or at least many people thought this), and they also wanted to separate the choice of president from the uniformed rabble of the masses. Not that that conceit survived contact with reality...
- just2n 14y ago
  I'd agree that would be a legitimate concern of the time, but I think that still agrees with my argument, given how easy it is to educate yourself on issues today.