West Virginian Mayor Might Defy Popular Vote

gleam writes "A maverick Republican mayor in West Virginia is reportedly considering not casting his vote in the Electoral College for Bush, even if Bush wins the popular vote there. South Charleston Mayor Richie Robb says, 'I know that among some in my own party, what I'm discussing would be considered treasonous, but I'm not going to cheerlead us down the primrose path when I know we're being led in the wrong direction.' It wouldn't be the first time a West Virginian Elector defied the popular vote: In 1988 an Elector cast her vote for Michael Dukakis's running mate, Lloyd Bentsen, even though Dukakis won the state's popular vote."

Comments

Re:Total nonsense.

[ageoffri]

I am really getting sick of people spouting this BS in articles like this lately. The electoral college system was designed because 200 years ago, it was the only logical way to do things. You didn't have cars, planes, or busses. All you had was horses.

I really suggest you read the Federal Papers before you make yourself look uneducated. There was no single reason the electoral process was chosen. Distance and communication was one. Another was to avoid foreign powers having an effect on the election of the President. They used words like "prostitue the vote" and assumed an Elector would be better educated then the general public and could avoid foriegn manipulation. Yet another reason was to balance the small states vs the large states. Don't belive me, then take a look at the information from the US Government on the electoral college. Also note that the electoral college is made up of the number of Senators and Represenitives.

Nowdays one of the reasons for the electoral college is gone, but not all of them.

Re:As an outsider...

[NateTech]

Note: On the world stage, many view the entire U.S. system as skewed to the Right.

One example, politicalcompass.com puts Kerry nearly center on a graph of left/right and also of authoritarian/libertarian, with GWB further right and authoritarian than Kerry.

A differnt type of world leader, such as Ghandi and Nelson Mandella fall left and libertarian.

In that light, Kerry's the more "centered" to the world, which GWB is the radical. The far left in the Dems are probably quite a way over on the graph, but could be either authoritarian or libertarian depending on their views.

Of interesting note, virtually no world leaders fall in the Libertarian/Right quadrant - a rare person indeed.