Decision 2004

[rbohm]

Originally posted by bmxmon
I think that the electoral college is kinda BS. From what i remember from my us history class like a year or two ago, it was mostly created because most americans werent greatly informed on politics, information didnt travel real fast, so people couldnt make as good of decisions based on the small information that they received. And, I feel that the majority should be the ones to tell who the president is going to be. I dont think that States should either be entirely for one canidate or the other. If in one state 40,000 people voted for Bush, and 30,000 people voted for Kerry, then Bush would get that state. Lets say that state has 5 people in the electorial college. A different state, 10,000 people vote for kerry, and 5,000 people vote for Bush. Kerry gets one person. Next state, Kerry gets 15,000 votes, Bush gets 5,000. Kerry gets one more person in the electorial college. Now, Bush would have 50,000 votes, and 5 people in the electoral college. Kerry would have 55,000 votes, 2 people in the electoral college.

Fair??? not really. By the way, I would rather see Bush get reelected. But Im 17, so i dont matter, haha.

mr 50 is right, the electoral college was established to prevent a few population centers dictating who the president would be. if we went by popular vote alone, we would have pesident al gore now, and he would have been foisted upon the rest of the country by places like los angeles, new york city, san fransisco, and a few other liberal strongholds. sorry but i dont want a large number of people in a few places telling me who is going to be president. if that ever happens then the rest of the country need not vote, and we can just wait untill LA and new york city get done voting. i dont think you want that either. also your plan of splitting the ec vote in each state is an interesting plan, but not viable either as that is controlled by state election law not federal, and all it would take is one state to decide not to follow the rest to screw things up. as far as how ec members in each state are allowed to vote, most states have no laws regarding that, thus each party has their own set of delegates to the ec convention that are sworn to vote as the state populace has for the first ballot. there are a few states that do have laws that require ec delegatges to vote as the state populace did on the first ec ballot. if there is no winner (268 ec votes), then you go to a brokered convention where all ec delegates may vote as they choose. this has happened once in our history as i recall, and that was when president lincoln was voted into office the first time. at the time the required ec vote was 173(?), and none of the candidates had the required total. thus the brokered convention. on the second ballot lincoln tied with his counterpart in the democrat party with 171.5 ec votes(yes individual delegates can split their vote between candidates). thus the third vote which lincoln won with 173 votes. i dont recall the reason he picked up the 1.5 votes needed, but it had something to do with putting one of his opponents into his cabinet.