Proposal to Update the Electoral College

A Stanford Professor has put down an idea (and also co-wrote a 620-page book for those who are that interested) on how to update the often criticized Electoral College system for presidential elections. Under the proposed system participating states would form a compact to throw all Electoral College votes behind the winner of the national popular vote regardless of which candidate won in any individual state. This proposed system would also make it much easier to bring the system up to date since it would not require a constitutional amendment to change or disband the Electoral College.

Comments

Re:Outdated System

[AKAImBatman]

Am I wrong or was the electoral college not setup first to make it easier to tally the votes and who won?

Oh, you're quite wrong. The answer to the problem is in the name of our nation: "The United States of America"

Under the original constitution, each state was a separate entity with its own laws that banded together for common defense under a singular Federal entity. Federal powers were always intended to be weak so as to allow for the diversity present in each state governing itself.

The electoral college was setup because the states were concerned that they would not be fairly represented. The concern was that since New York had the largest population, all the elections would follow their desires without the opinions and diversity of the rest of the nation coming into play. As a result, the EC was developed to allow even the smallest state to have a bit of weight in their vote.

In case the implications of that aren't clear, let me spell it out: The electoral college is designed to NOT reflect the popular vote.

Sometimes the popular vote reflects the college vote (especially in the case of a landslide), but in many close races the two will differ. (e.g. Bush vs. Gore '00)

What's interesting is that the people demanding a change in the method used to count the vote is almost always the folks from heavily populated areas. i.e. The exact people the electoral college was setup to protect against. The concern is that these people have little understanding of other areas, and would do insurmountable damage to the rest of the nation. Considering that our food production as well as many forms of research and manufacturing are handled in rural areas, failing to represent them could be disasterous.

Re:interesting theory

[AKAImBatman]

Another idea is to make election day a national holiday, like it is in *every* country except the US.

You do know that your employer is required by law to give you time off to vote, don't you?

No?

*sigh*