Pet Peeves | Page 246 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

The olden time reasons are perhaps more relevant today…….

I take your point 1 citizen 1 vote….Sounds like basic democracy to me too…..

But with the Federal make up of the US why would a state have ever joined if its local concerns could be completely ignored or over-ruled by larger or more populous states…..I see the need for a balance then…..

But it seems just as relevant now. It forces potential Presidential wannabes to vsit and consider States they might otherwise completely discount…..And ‘flyover’

Self deleted post……It was a funny maths question that had no relevance…….

Here’s a useful cut and paste ‘primer’

Here Are the Advantages of the Electoral College

1. It requires a distribution of popular support.
Because of the structure of the Electoral College, a President must receive national support to win an election. This promotes a healthy cohesiveness within the country because there must be a distribution of that support so that a majority of electoral votes can be received. Without this structure, a candidate would spend most of their time in large population centers campaigning because that’s where the popular vote would be won.

2. It gives minority interests a say in the election.
Since a national level of support is required because of the Electoral College, minority causes, interests, and concerns are given a voice that reaches a national level. The votes of a small minority in a state can sway the difference in an election, especially since most states award all their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote. This allows a certain amount of leverage to be used during the election that may not be possible in general society otherwise.

3. It encourages political stability.
The United States focuses on a two-party system because of the structure in the Electoral College. That doesn’t mean other political parties can’t get involved in the election. It just means most candidates that are elected will be either a Republican or a Democrat. The only independent candidate to be elected President in US history was George Washington. The last third-party candidate to win a state’s electoral votes was George Wallace in 1968. This means there is a reasonable certainty as to how the government will run, no matter which major party in the US winds up with the white house.

4. It maintains a system of national representation.
The United States was founded on the idea that taxation without representation was unfair. It was part of the reason for the rebellion of the colonies in the first place. With the Electoral College, a general consensus can be maintained so the structure of the government and the independent political powers of each state and local government can continue existing. In national representation, each state and population district receives equal representation, in either the house or the senate, and that allows individual voters to still have a say in what happens.

Here Are the Disadvantages of the Electoral College

1. It creates the possibility of a minority president being elected.
The US has elected two minority presidents in the last 20 years because of the Electoral College. In 1992, President Bill Clinton was elected with less than 50% of the total popular vote as well. If no one individual candidate reaches the 270 threshold, then anyone who has received an electoral vote can be elected President by the legislative branch of the government. All it takes is 1 electoral vote.

2. There is a risk of faithless electors casting ballots.
No elector has changed the outcome of an election in the United States by not voting for the candidate their individual voters wanted, but the structure of the Electoral College makes it a possibility. There have been 167 faithless electors in history, but 81 of those votes were changed because the original candidate died before the date on which the votes were to be cast. In 2016, there were 10 faithless electors.

3. It can depress voter turnout in some areas.
In the 2016 Presidential election, candidate Hillary Clinton had a consistent 15- to 20-point lead over Donald Trump in the polling for several weeks before the election. The final outcome showed a difference of 16.2 percentage points. For Republicans or Independents, casting a ballot for the election could seem pointless because Clinton’s win seemed like a foregone conclusion. Because of the structure of the Electoral College, this can lead to voters choosing not to vote because they feel like their vote is not going to matter anyway.

4. It may not be an accurate reflection of the will of the people.
In the Republican primaries leading up to the 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump was consistently receiving about 35% of the Republican vote. 30% were voting for Marco Rubio and another 30% were voting for Ted Cruz – both men part of the Tea Party movement and the son of an immigrant. Without that split, Trump may not have made it out of the primaries. Even then, he failed to win a majority of the votes in the main election. With the Electoral College, all that matters is the final count of electoral votes, not actual votes, and that means a candidate may be supported by a minority only.

The advantages and disadvantages of the Electoral College show us that the system, while imperfect in some ways, has been a beneficial force in the elections held in the United States since its founding. The alternatives to the Electoral College could offer even more problems than what are currently being experienced, which is why efforts to abolish the structure have failed so far.

The Electoral College was designed to solve the problem of population distribution. It continues to do so today, even though the US is much larger than it was during the first elections.

Here’s your homework:…….Come up with a system that has all the advantages of the current system with none of the disadvantages……

I don’t want to answer for BB…..Just my two dimes worth…..

I believe it would lead to the dissolution of the United States…..That certainly could happen.

Consider the populous currently dysfunctional blue states bullying and kicking around the red states……That’s on the cards if you destroy the Electoral college system that gives small States a voice. The States will then become merely geographical regions run by and subject to the whims of  the perpetually Democrat majorities.

I don’t think small red States will accept to being ignored and kicked around by California and New York…..Getting rid of the Electoral college would lead to the Sovietisation of the US…..It would also result in far more power residing in a corrupt centralised government.  You’ll recall in Union Of Soviet Socialist Republics, the individual republics had theoretical autonomy…… in actual fact they had none. All powers and rights resided with the central government.

More centralised power more calls for controls of individual rights and calls for the re-writing of the Bill of Rights……

The system devised by the FF has worked pretty well for over 200 years…..It’s based I suppose fundamentally on ‘no taxation without representation” That was a powerful message a long time ago …It remains a powerful message today.

Dramatic as it sounds I think there most certainly could be another civil war if Red States felt bullied by Blue States…..without a voice what else would their choices be?

Please say what you really feel about my post……

I believe in freedom of speech…….Not freedom from speech…..You have the absolute right to risk offending me….

Ron Nasty said
And I have every right not to get into a pissing contest with you, @Wigwam, since – as I’ve already said – I was asking an American the question, not a expat Brit.

No offence intended.

  

Fair enough I did sort of butt in……And what do Brits, especially expats Brits know about the workings of the American Constitution and American Exceptionalism?

I’m sure Beatlebug can give you chapter and verse.

Cheers