I know that what this guy is thinking of doing would help John Kerry, who I am obviously pulling for, BUT, I think this is absolute GARBAGE and is a great example of why the electoral college should be replaced. I agree with the overall concept of the methodology that the electoral college is based on but making it so that one person can change the decision of multiple millions is just criminal. W. Virginia Elector Might Leave Bush By JENNIFER BUNDY, Associated Press Writer CHARLESTON, W.Va. - If President Bush wins West Virginia, one of the state's five Republican electors says he might not vote for Bush to protest the president's economic and foreign policies. South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb said based on his research, an elector has "qualified discretion" when it comes to casting a vote. "There is an implied duty to vote for your party's candidate. But I don't think it's an explicit duty or responsibility," said Robb, a moderate Republican who has a reputation of being a maverick in the state party. Still, Robb calls it "highly unlikely" that he would cast a vote for Democrat John Kerry. He said he might cast his vote for Vice President Dick Cheney or another Republican instead as a protest against Bush, meaning the president would lose out on one electoral vote. Robb's decision could end up having enormous national significance because the presidential election is expected to go down to the wire. That is exactly what happened in 2000, when George W. Bush won the White House with 271 electoral votes. To win the presidency, a candidate must receive 270 electoral votes. "There are people talking about a tied race," said Larry Sabato, a political scientist with the University of Virginia. "This one man could change the election result, could negate the vote of 115 million Americans." Robb's dissatisfaction with Bush stems from the president's decision to invade Iraq and economic policies he says have caused the loss of nearly 1,000 high-paying chemical and manufacturing jobs in his town of about 13,000 residents. Robb has been mayor of the Charleston suburb since 1975. A veteran who won a Bronze Star in the Vietnam War, Robb said he also is upset with campaign ads that attacked Kerry's war record. State GOP Chairman Kris Warner said he is not worried about how Robb will vote if West Virginia again goes for the president. Bush won the 2-to-1 Democrat state in 2000 by 6 percentage points, making him the first Republican presidential candidate who was not an incumbent to take the state in more than 70 years. "I maintain Mayor Robb will carry out the will of the West Virginia people when it becomes clear and decisive President Bush has carried the state," Warner said. Recent polls show the race is too close too call. Robb said he objects to criticism from some who say he is a "faithless" elector. He said he views himself as a "principled elector" because he is discussing his qualms about Bush before the election. "There have been a few people who have been downright hateful. I think that is just the nature of this election, which has been hateful," Robb said. "I won't be intimidated by the mean-spirited attacks." Only 10 electors in history have gone against the popular vote, including one from West Virginia. Margarette Leach of Huntington declined to vote for Michael Dukakis in 1988 even though Dukakis carried West Virginia. Leach cast her presidential vote for Dukakis' running mate, Lloyd Bentsen. link
No matter who wins or how, we should get rid of the EC. It's a joke. But I don't think it will happen.
My ideal result. Kerry wins on the electoral votes, Bush gets the popular vote. A bipartisan consensus emerges to get rid of the piece of crap electoral college. Since I first heard about it in grade school I though it was bs.
Whereas I sympathize with the feeling that we lose the "one man, one vote" concept with the Electoral College, I think we need to consider some realities before abandoning a system that has worked for 200 years. The system was devised to protect the states with small populations for much the same reason as we produced a bi-cameral system of two senators from every state, regardless of size, and representatives based on population. Even though a state has as few as three electoral votes, those votes are proportionately greater. Presidents may forget about campaigning in North Dakota or Montana but in a close election those electoral votes become significant. Without them, Presidential candidates would cater exclusively to the large states. We need change, but we need to think it through, especially in light of the ease in committing voter fraud. If Philadelphia keeps up its registration pace, it will have more voters than residents.
I just don't see how you are protecting the state when you basically deny the vote of a major chunk of your population.
the reality of the EC system has led to all the things you worry about - but to an even worse extent. Presidential candidates do cater to only certain states now - and they're not even large, they're small, generally along demographic/regional borderlines. They're also the same group of states that they catered to 4 years ago, despite the fact that the election is super close. I'm not saying a straight popular vote majority is the necessary alternative - a system with split electoral votes would still allow small states to wield disproportionate influence, yet allow for more of the country to be "up for grabs".
As I said: We need change, but we need to think it through, especially in light of the ease in committing voter fraud. If Philadelphia keeps up its registration pace, it will have more voters than residents.
Without the electoral college, there will be "swing cities" instead of "swing states". Not a huge difference, so I don't care if it stays or goes.
That is a separate issue that is present or not under any method. If anything, the disproportionate influence of PA under the electoral college system accentuates or accelerates the incidence of alleged voter fraud there.
As I said, we need to think an EC change through carefully. Under the one state, one vote scenario, a voter in Montana would have much greater weight than a voter in New York. Hmmmmmmm. Wait, that might not be a bad thing.
It already works this way in the Senate. As it is, rural states chow down at the federal pork and urban states foot the bill.
Sounds like you not only want to change the Electoral College but the United States system of government as well.
Contrary to seat of the pants analysis, the electoral college favors voters in big states. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/bo...ectoral+college+primer+2000&userid=669sej1kq0 The Senate works the opposite way, overweighting small states' citizens votes. You make it sound like change is the destroyer of worlds.
There have been 156 "faithless electors," the first being in 1796 (guy name Miles, I think, pledged to vote for Adams but voted for Jefferson) the last being in 2000, a D.C. Gore delegate abstained to protest D.C. not having Congressional representation. No faithlesss elector has ever changed an election though.
I read in the Battalion earlier this month in an article about a professor here at A&M critiqing the electoral college. He said that the Bush campaign tried to get electors to agree to change their vote to Bush back in 2000 if things went down the way they were supposed to (Bush winning majority votes, Gore winning electoral votes), but of course, that never happened and the rest is history. The article was pretty much talking about how the system hinders voter participation. I also found this site: http://www.theelectoralcollegesucks.com/
Do candidates-turned-presidents really give swing states that voted his way "extra good stuff" once in the white house? This seems to be what you're implying. I've never heard any news on this sort of thing. And this is something that should seem newsworthy.
1. It seems to me that the Electoral College made a lot more sense before federalism. Before the Civil War, the country was more a confederacy of independent states than it was a government subdivided into regional governing bodies. Pre-Civil War, the power of the States was paramount and, in relation to the federal power, they each operated as a unit -- thus the EC. After the Civil War, there was a sea change of centralizing power in the federal body instead of in the States. The paradigm shifted from the States being members of the federal body to the individual citizens being members of the federal body. I think that's why the EC makes a lot less sense to people nowadays -- they think of themselves as citizens of the country first and citizens of the State second. I would have preferred the old system (I am a Texan, after all), but it's gone. The EC doesn't exactly serve the new reality. 2. I think the Electoral College also made more sense in a less diversified economy. In early 19th century America, you had industry and large cities in the Northeast and a relatively unindustrialized agriculture-economy in the South. Because of the differing economies, you could expect political interests on the national stage to differ on the basis of region. Southern states would have a strong interest in some agricultural issues that Yankees could care less about. Likewise with the North. Given that an entire State or even group of States could have a common interest in federal matters made making them a voting bloc unto themselves make sense. Nowadays, the economy is much more diversified. Areas that had once been pure agriculural areas now also have significant industry. Texas is a great example, having plenty of beef, and lots of agriculture but also being the heart of the petrochemical industry, siginificant computer industry, and a jillion other things. It is less the case now (though there's an extent to which regional economics will never cease to be a factor) that you could expect the economic interests of everyone in a State to coincide with one another simply because they live near one another. So, the usefullness in this regard of the EC has also been blunted. Not that I'm a big enemy of the Electoral College. I like that it does shore up the State from some further erosion of its power. It works okay for picking a president. Presidents are always picked on pretty slim margins. Is one president really much more legitimate if he got 51% of the popular vote instead of 49%? It's only a 2% spread. Presidents who win the election but lose the popular vote don't lose the popular vote by a significant amount.
