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

interesting theory

[preppypoof]

this system could possibly yield better voter turnout...if someone who wanted to vote republican lives in a traditionally "blue" state, they might not have voted knowing their vote wouldn't matter. if everyone's vote counted the same in the entire country, however, that person would be more likely to go to the polls.

Re:interesting theory

[mrxak]

Personally, I think voting should be MANDATORY for all citizens, but I don't think that will happen either.

So you want millions of uninformed uncaring citizens to start determining national policy? The solution is to education people so that they want to vote, not force people to vote on things they know nothing about.

Re:interesting theory

[charlesbakerharris]

Pfft. I'm informed enough to know that in a blue state, my vote doesn't count. I'm more educated than 95% of the people in my state, but I don't vote because it could never possibly matter.

Then again, I'm arguing with someone who said "The solution is to education people..."

GG.

Re:interesting theory

[parasonic]

this system could possibly yield better voter turnout...if someone who wanted to vote republican lives in a traditionally "blue" state, they might not have voted knowing their vote wouldn't matter. if everyone's vote counted the same in the entire country, however, that person would be more likely to go to the polls.

Or, rather, it could do the opposite. A voter could be in a state with a small population where his vote would count more. Perhaps he would be in a state that is nearly split down the middle, and his vote may matter more with the electoral college than with the gross sum voting system. The electoral college is there to give each region (state) as much power as the next region in the federation, creating a balance of power in the federal level.

Re:interesting theory

[plague3106]

Interesting theory, but there's a reason we're a republic and NOT a democracy. Perhaps this prof. should read up on exactly WHY the electorate exists.

Re:interesting theory

[bhima]

If I could vote for "none of the above" and if enough people did it it would them find another contender... then I'd be truly interested.

But these days I can't decide between one vile reprehensible scum bag and another. Nearly daily I stand in awe seeing how these people are fucking up an otherise perfectly fine contry. I am beginning to think we'd be better off deciding law and foreign policy with one of those ping pong ball lottery machines.

Also I don't actually live in the US any more and given the state of things I have zero confidence that my vote is actually counted... actually now that I've said that I guess I shouldn't feel any different that people that vote using Diebold Machines.

Re:interesting theory

[crumley]

The politicians know that the vast majority of people voting are senior citizens.

There aren't enough senior citizens for them to make up the vast majority of voters in the US. Sure, a larger percentage senior citizens vote than other age groups, but that doesn't make them the vast majority of voters.

The polls in most states are open at least 12 hours, and if that still doesn't work for you could get an absentee ballot.

Re:interesting theory

[timeOday]

So you want millions of uninformed uncaring citizens to start determining national policy? The solution is to education people so that they want to vote, not force people to vote on things they know nothing about.

I have personal opinions and think I'm pretty well informed, but my attendance record at the polls is spotty. Why? Because one vote doesn't matter. There is absolutely 0% chance that my single vote will sway the Presidential election, because they can't even count within that margin of error, and if the vote is that close it comes down to procedural rulings anyways (as demonstrated in 2000).

Do I know that the entire system would collapse if everybody thought that and stopped voting entirely? Sure. But I only control my own vote, and I know it doesn't matter.

It's the same reason you have to legislate things like pollution controls. Otherwise even rational environmentalists would still pollute, since the emissions from your tailpipe alone will never matter. What matters is whether the masses polute, and to affect that you need laws.

Re:interesting theory

[nathanh]

So you want millions of uninformed uncaring citizens to start determining national policy?

The problem with voluntary voting systems - such as in the USA - is that the voluntary voters aren't necessarily informed. However the voluntary voters are almost certainly opinionated.

The end result is the vote is decided by minority groups with political agendas. Mandatory voting forces the politicians to appeal to the largest demographics, rather than the noisiest minorities.

Re:interesting theory

[cayenne8]

"What would stop a politician from going to a heavily populated city such as New York or L.A. and promising..."

I know...this is the very thing that keeps me from wanting to do away with the Electoral Collge...and go just to popular vote. The lessor populated states would lose their voices basically to a few east and west coast states...and Texas.

The EC allows for each state to have enough voice in the vote and be important enough for the candidates to have to listen to their needs and visit with them (at least in theory).

You gotta remember...this is a union of STATES, each one actually, is similar to a small country joined together with the other states. And as large and varied as the cultures, resources and environments as the US is...this isn't necessarily a bad thing. People in Maine have distinctly different outlooks and needs than someone in Texas or Alaska, and that should be addressed by the candidates...although I'll admit, that has faded to a large extent. But, doing away with the EC or this proposal making popular vote the way, doesn't sound right.

However, I would think that possibly breaking up each states Electoral Votes proportionally to the votes within EACH state...would be more fair....I could see that being a better modification.

Re:interesting theory

[GameMaster]

We Americans don't live in a true democracy; we live in a constitutional republic. It was intentionally designed so that rule by the majority (a.k.a. the "tyranny of the majority" in the words of one founding father) is blunted. In fact, that was, specifically, one of the reasons for the creation of the Electoral College. In the event of the public being tricked into voting extremely unwisely, (voting for someone that intends to dissolve the government and set up a dictatorship or theocracy for example) there is someone there to make a reality check.

An example of the weakness of a true democracy is that, as I have seen mentioned by someone else on Slashdot in the past, 50.0000000000001% of the population could, potentially, vote to have the remaining portion of the American public executed because they don't like them (for whatever reason. race religion, etc.). In the U.S., that pesky thing called the Constitution would stop you from implementing that plan. Of course you could, theoretically, amend the constitution but I have heard arguments to the extent that amendments aren't capable of running counter to the content of the body of the constitution and, either way, you would then need much more that a simple majority.

In the end, everyone is supposed to be able to vote if they want to and, with some limited and controversial exceptions, (like prison convicts) they have that ability. On the other hand, as someone else mentioned, to simply force all people to vote, whether they want to or not, would be neither good for our society as a whole or an accurate implementation of even true democracy. If you really think about it, not showing up at the voting booth is a form of abstention and abstaining is a perfectly legitimate vote (especially if you don't know enough to make an informed decision)

-GameMaster

Re:interesting theory

[skam240]

this is classic "part of the problem" thinking. I prefer to be a member of the "part of the solution crowd".

Re:interesting theory

[ahmusch]

You mean like the way Maine and Nebraska do it today?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_Colleg e/

Doing it that way everywhere would certainly yield an electoral college result that is significantly more representative of the collective will of each state's voters.

Further, the electors of the electoral college are representatives of the various states, and therefore state laws govern their actions. You'd need a constitutional amendment to change that, and all bets are off if that happens.

Remember -- you don't vote for President. Your state does. Tradition may argue otherwise, but "each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors..." That's the law, and it's one of those big nasty constitutional ones.

Re:interesting theory

[mrchaotica]

It was intentionally designed so that rule by the majority (a.k.a. the "tyranny of the majority" in the words of one founding father) is blunted. In fact, that was, specifically, one of the reasons for the creation of the Electoral College. In the event of the public being tricked into voting extremely unwisely, (voting for someone that intends to dissolve the government and set up a dictatorship or theocracy for example) there is someone there to make a reality check.

Exactly! According to the original design, the public is not supposed to be voting for the President at all. The public is supposed to vote for their representatives in state government, and then their state government is supposed to choose electors who then choose the President. Heck, for that matter, we originally didn't even have direct election of US Senators -- they were chosen by the state legislature too!

In my opinion, that was actually a better system than we have now, for two reasons. First, it would stop the presidential election from being a "popularity contest" as it is today (e.g., ever since television the winning candidate tends to be the one with better looks), and second, it would increase the importance of local elections.

Re:interesting theory

[kenj0418]

On a practical level, one benefit the electoral college gives us is isolating debacles like Florida in 2000. Imagine if we had a direct popular vote, and we were within a few thousand votes. We would have had the madness in Florida going on in 50 different states.

Other than that, yes, the college is outdated and should be tossed.

Ken

Re:interesting theory

[TheGavster]

... short of a direct-democracy where every tiny issue is decided on by national vote. That method just doesn't work on a large scale.

I think that this brings up the issue of why our federal government deals with every teeny tiny issue. The interstate commerce clause leads the way in legislative abuse.

Re:interesting theory

[gb506]

He knows why it exists, he's just very disappointed in recent results, and he knows there are significant numbers of people out there who do not understand the EC and what it protects us from.

Personally, I prefer the current system due to the fact that a presidential candidate would not get within 200 miles of my town were the popular vote the deciding factor. You might have visits to the top 30 or 40 metro areas and that'd be that. Hardly inclusive, and hardly representative of the American cultural spectrum.

Re:interesting theory

[anaesthetica]

The solution is neither to change the constitution, nor to have each state's electors vote for the national majority, but rather to implement the electoral college the way the constitution originally defined it

I find this to be the solution to most voting complaints. Most things can and should be solved at the state level. People who strongly desire imposing a universal solution on all 50 states like proportional systems, and like the idea of getting rid of the electoral college, and speak disdainfully about the need for substantive state powers. People who want instant runoff voting can implement it at state level, and people who want proportionally assigned electors can implement that through state law. None of this needs to be implemented at a federal level.

Change can and does happen faster at a state level: state legislators are more accessible to local activists than federal representatives (who are completely swamped), and states were intended to be laboratories of democracy and innovative government (according to Supreme Court Justice Brandeis). Pursuing universal solutions through the federal government when there is no need for nation-wide uniformity robs the country of states-as-laboratories and hamstrings one of the major advantages of a federal system of government.

Re:interesting theory

[Schraegstrichpunkt]

Some people say that it couldn't be secure, or that there's no way to implement it, but if they can do taxes online they can certainly do that.

It isn't secure. How do you prevent vote-selling with Internet voting? What about preventing DoS attacks against identifiable segments of voters? Corruption by election officials?

The fact that somebody else is doing Internet voting doesn't make it a good idea.

Re:interesting theory

[Arcane_Rhino]

The solution is the instant run-off system. It is a bit complex to describe but, quick and dirty, if one's first selection does not garner enough votes to win, the next selection is tallied. It would make third parties viable without abandoning the two party system that the US has adopted.

One can vote one's conscience with the confidence that if the non-mainstream party of choice does not win, the second choice can be the mainstream party that will do the least damage. ('Course, given the last 30 years, I couldn't tell you which one that is or if there is any real difference, but I digress...)

We attempted to institute the instant run-off system in Alaska but certain idiots didn't think it was fair if they "only got one vote". (Which meant that their first choice would have been elected.) They actually would have voted as many times as anyone else but they never seemed to understand this.

I finally told this group of idiots (I am still grumpy about it) that they could have 10000 votes to my one if I got to win every time.

Realistically, I don't think the US will ever change until we experience a catastrophe that requires us to rebuild our government. Either way, rough times ahead.

-------

Clever trolls are master baiters of the worst kind.

Re:interesting theory

[mrxak]

I'm not talking about votes here, I'm talking about how the system treats the people who are voting. It's too easy then for a politician to simply ignore the parts of the country with low populations. They can just hit the major cities, flood the larger states with more TV ads, and that's it.

Re:interesting theory

[cheezedawg]

I think that's about the biggest problem with the current US election system. Most democracies/constitutional monarchies I know about have more than two relevant parties while the USA don't.

As a US citizen, I think the two-party system is one of our greatest strengths. At it's core, a two-party system is a huge moderating force, as both parties are forced towards the middle to appeal to the largest number of voters. Candidates cannot merely cater to an extremist minority faction and win an election with a small plurality (as has happened many times in history, including in your country, with negative results). Instead, only the candidates that espouse mainstream values can be elected. The result is a much more stable and predictable government.

Sorry.

[Rob T Firefly]

This is a fantastic idea which seems to have the ability to cut down on red tape and electoral disputes while more aaccurately projecting the wishes of the population onto the American government. And that's precisely why it'll never get anywhere close to implementation by the very people kept rich and powerful by the current system.

Still, Professor Koza might as well get something for his troubles. Someone slice up a banana for him, and put his favorite video on.

Re:Sorry.

[emag]

You're thinking along similar lines to me. If anything, I'd much rather see electoral votes divided in a state, either based on popularity or congressional district. We already have candidates that only pay attention to the most populous areas of the states with the most electoral votes. Going with a national popularity contest would just make the problem worse, and basically disenfranchise huge numbers of voters. Making a candidate actually WORK for each and every electoral vote would mean no more "let's concentrate on NY, CA, TX" style campaigning, and would likely in several areas result in electoral votes for third party candidates, which is something else this proposed system would more than likely make impossible.

A Maine/Nebraska (or finer-grained) scheme would also address problems such as those in the 2000 election, thanks to, at most, 3 electoral votes being up for grabs, instead of an entire state's worth.

Re:Sorry.

[RexRhino]

The U.S. government was not supposed to "project the wishes of the American people". The U.S. government was supposed to keep agressive people from "projecting their wishes" on other unwilling innocent people. The U.S. government was supposed to be peacemaker and guardian of individual liberty, not dictator and grand potentiate.

The U.S. government was designed to be limited. It has fallen far short of that ideal and has become quite authoritarian... but making it even more top-down centralized is not going to suddenly give power to the people.

Why this won't work

[DeathPooky]

This would effectively give a small number of states control over the electoral system. Looks like your candidate won't be winning the popular vote? Have states that might otherwise support him drop out of the system, either causing the system to collapse or become ineffective. A few states dropping out would then cause a chain reaction of other states dropping out to counteract the problem.

The electoral college is in many ways a bad idea in modern times, but a constitutional amendment is the best way to go about fixing it.

Re:Why this won't work

[thefirelane]

>The only states where their people would feel they have something to gain would be those that are consistantly "too close to call".

Interestingly enough, under our current system those states get boat loads of attention... any by attention I mean money... in an effort to lock in votes.

In summary, no one likes this idea.

Re:Why this won't work

[crazyfreakid]

"My one vote is equal to several California votes. Isn't that a great way of saying fuck you?"

That's only a great way of making others want to return the favor. It's also part of the reason for this proposal, which will make those several Californians or Texans or residents of any other darkly red or blue state believe again that their votes matter.
Less disilusionment = more voting, which is the whole point.

Semantics

[christopherfinke]

So basically, their plan to update the Electoral College is to give the presidency to the winner of the popular vote? Isn't that more of a removal than an update, since that would make the College useless?

Re:Semantics

[Red Flayer]

It's not just semantics. It's counter to the very idea of States' rights. While the EC was meant to approximate the elective power of each state according to their population, it reserves the right of each state to allot their votes as they choose. Most states have a winner-take-all system, but at least one state splits its EC votes according to the popular vote in that state.

The author of this idea should focus on convincing states to implement a better system for assigning the votes of their electoral college reps. Taking the power of this choice from the states is just one more way that we're seeing a homogenization of states that, IMO, benefits only the majority.

Re:Semantics

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, the Electoral College prevents highly populated states from dictating policy to the more numerous but less densly populated states. I always thought of it as a balance of powers in that way, just like how we have a Senate and House of Representatives. However, Senators used to be appointed by state legislature as a sort of ambassador from the states. Now they are directly elected so we really have a House of Representatives and a smaller House of Representatives :(

In my opinion, the more conflict inside government, the less gets done, and the less the government can infringe on our rights.

Can't Win? Change the rules!

[sithkhan]

I love how fruity the left land of silliness is! How about this for the importance of the Electoral college? Make the State Senates vote for the US Senators; that would put a bee in their bonnet!
---
You can also create new lines here if you want
Generated by SlashdotRndSig via GreaseMonkey

No

[acvh]

The whole point of the "United States" is that we are a federation of 50 states. That means that we have intentionally crafted a system in which each state gets a certain minimum representation, both in Congress and in selecting a president. Proposals such as this would change the rules under which smaller states joined the union; their voices would cease to be heard.

If this is really the way we want to go, then we should eliminate state government, replace it with regional governors to attend to regional issues, and stop pretending that states matter.

Re:No

[je ne sais quoi]

The whole point of the "United States" is that we are a federation of 50 states."

BUUUZZZZT! Wrong answer, thanks for playing. See, we had this little thing called the Civil war where 600,000 people died in order to decide that in the end, the good of the entire populace outweighs the good of any individual state. Determining who the president is surely a matter where the good of the entire population trumps the good of any individual state.

Re:No

[anaesthetica]

artificial divisions of state

States are only "artificial" if you have no concept of American history and have never traveled through the United States. People from other countries don't understand regional or state-specific differences in the U.S. Moreover, American history is taught with poorer and poorer standards, and with less focus on state history. For instance, I received no education in Maryland history even though I attended high school there. So even Americans don't understand why we have states instead of a unitary government.

Division of power between a number of levels and branches of government is fundamental to the liberal philosophical tradition. Read Locke and Montesquieu. Liberal institutions which diffuse power to intermediate and co-equal entities is essential in preventing the centralization of power. It is centralized power that is far more prone to abuse than decentralized power--that should be obvious. Why then would you want to eliminate the substantive role of state divisions, when they are there to fundamentally split power, prevent swaying of the masses through temporary demagogy, and check the central government?

Re:No

[spirality]

Without this compromise the United States would never have been created. States such as Rhode Island, Conneticut, New Hampshire, basically the smaller states would never have ratified the constitution without these provisions.

Federalism is about the states having power. It's also about the Federal Government being limited in its scope, something that most of us ignore these days. See the 10th Amendment to the constitution sometime. Revel in the fact it is a dead letter.

States do matter. Without the states there would be no United States. Sometimes one really wishes the South won the War of the States... Certainly not for the sake of salvery, but because it was a war about a limited federal government. Oh well...

Re:No

[Coryoth]

This isn't an abstract line in the sand, it is the principle on which this country was founded. Take that away and we might as well resport to the solution I referenced previously, do away with the fiction of "states" and make the US one big country with one government.

I think the problem, and the reason these sorts of proposals keep getting raised, is because, in many ways, the US already has become one big country with one government. Yes the states remain, and so do state governments, and indeed they still wield considerable power. The balance, however, shifted some time ago, and the concentration of power and importance in the federal government has been steadily increasing. States are already becoming less and less important. As someone else pointed out, US and State history is, these days, taught in such a way that many people don't see the states as primary but rather see the USA, governed by the federal government as primary, and the States as convenient divisions. In many ways people think of themselves first as an "American", and only later as an Ohioan, or Nebraskan, or what have you (there are, of course, cases of dominant or important states, like New York, California, and Texas that still carry some primacy in the minds of their citizens). Consider, for instance, how often you see US flags being waved rather than, say, State flags. In fact I wonder how many people could actually recognise all 50 state flags? At this point what the founder intended has to face up with the current reality where centralised federal government has grown and ossified. I think this sort of proposal (popular vote for President) is stemming from the desire to do something about this clash of original intention with reality - you either need to change the voting structure to reflect reality, or change the reality to better reflect the original intent that lies behind the voting structure.

Re:No

[RexRhino]

Bzzztttt. Wrong answer. The Civil War was largely an economic and social clash between the rising industrial capitalists, and the declining agrarian oligarchs. This manifested itself in disagreements about slavery (which promoted the southern agrarian economy, but hurt the northern industrial economy), and about tarifs on imported industrial goods (the north wanted tarifs on foriegn industrial goods in order to expand American industrialism, the south wanted free trade to trade cotton to England in exchange for cheap imported industrial goods).

Re:No

[UserGoogol]

Except the states are not being represented in the CURRENT SYSTEM. In the current system, states don't elect presidents, people do. Gradually over history, state governments decided that they didn't really want to elect the presidents, and instead decided to pass the buck to the populations of their states. If you want the states to be represented, then you should support a movement to eradicate popular elections entirely and have the state legislatures decide directly what electors they want to send to the college.

As it currently stands, the people are electing the president, but we are treating them as if the states are the ones doing it. The power has already been voluntarily transfered from the states to the people, but the voting system does not acknowledge this in any way.

Federalism is a good idea. It is a good idea to have certain aspects of governance be adminstered by local subgovernments. But that is all states are: local subgovernments. And as it currently stands, the local subgovernments have no direct impact on which president is elected. But the system treats elections as if they did. Thus the problem.

Re:No

[ChristTrekker]

The balance, however, shifted some time ago

Due, in no small part, to the ratification of the 17th Amendment in 1913. Easier communication and transportation played a significant role as well, of course. But when States (as governmental bodies) ceased sending their own representatives to the national government, that was the death knell of federalism.

Re:No

[Chris Burke]

That's because he got more popular votes than any other candidate:

Clinton 43%
Bush Sr. 38%
Perot 19%

I would like to point out something implied by these numbers that also speaks against the electoral college.

Roughly 1/5th of the total votes were for a 3rd party candidate. One fifth. It's been a long time since that happened, and never in recent times has a 3rd party candidate looked stronger. And yet, on the only scoreboard that matters, the electoral votes, Perot got zero. He didn't even show up. What does that say about the viability of 3rd parties? A party that received 1/5th of the vote should be considered a major force. Instead, with zero percent of the electoral vote, the entire concept of third parties was seen as defeated.

The winner-take-all electoral college is a major reason why we are so strongly locked into a two-party system. Nobody -- especially in a closely contested state -- dares to throw their vote away on a third party, because the way the system is set up says they not only can't succeed, they can't even show up on the scoreboard.

Re:No

[ComputerSlicer23]

Actually if you read the papers about the arguments, the people who argued hardest for the Electoral College is actually the South. The South had huge populations, but incredibly small populations of eligible voters (White Land owning men). Because of the changes in who is eligible, this bit of history has been erased. Partial reasons for including the Electoral College as written in the Constitution (see the 3/5ths rule right in the middle of it), is so that the South would get authority commesurate with the number of slaves, yet without letting the slaves vote.

Ironically, the electoral college is one of the last vestiges of Slavery with any weight in the Constitutions. In fact, Jefferson wouldn't have gotten elected if not for the Electoral College. I believe other early elections had the outcome affected also.

See here, or just google for "Slavery" and "Electoral College".

My largest concern for the Electoral college is the sense of "my vote doesn't count", and the fact that we've devolved into two parties and that's it. The lack of any third party candidate to get real traction concerns me. Effectively there is a lot less of a market place where people can't pick from more people. It'd be novel to have a legitimate opportunity to clue the established political machine that things should change, without them having to make it blazingly obvious to the entire public that the system is incredibly broken.

Kirby

This = PR

[FhnuZoag]

Really, all this represents is a way to getting in Proportional Representation via the back door, with all the advantages and disadvantages that PR provides - and in a way that can bypass any wingeing states/parties who might complain about reductions to their political importance.

Not to say that this is a bad idea, but just to note that it's only the method here that is new, not the end result.

Worst ... idea.... ever

[mabhatter654]

That's the worst idea ever. The president was NEVER supposed to be elected by popular vote. The Framers hated that idea to the core. It's a bit of a "states rights" thing but it's up to the states individually to determine how they will cast their votes. There's nothing in the Constitution itself that says people are suppose to vote for senators or presidents. To the Framers, that choice was supposed to be made by the officially elected state government. That way somebody smart, and already elected once was making the choice for who the next higher up officeholder would be. On the surface it seems anti-democratic, but in reality, many of our Federal govt problems are directly related to Federal elections and officers being separate and disconnected from the lower branches of government. Think of how fast all the issues with Bush would be resolved if he and the senate had to answer not just to the idea of "voters" but to specific branches of state government.. Where would we be if our state legislatures or governors could call our Federal Senators on the carpet and demand their votes the way the States demand it to be because they appointed them, not the voter sheep. We'd see a much higher quality of govt if the feds were responsible to somebody local not "everybody" in a nebulous get elected next term way.

Re:Worst ... idea.... ever

[Enrique1218]

I would disagree with you. First and foremost, the framers set up the constitution to be ammended with the times because they knew that they couldn't think of everything. What the Framers envisioned 220 years ago is not necessarily applicable today. They never could think of the internet or TV. The population as a whole is now not as nebulous as you describe due in large part to the forums like the one we are using now to discuss the issues across the nation. The internet links us together and can be used to inform and rally the people to exercise greater control of the government and of the president. Second, mass communciation system that we have now can further inform and update voters in real-time. Then, polls can quickly gauge the pulse of the people providing the appropriate feedback to the elected officials of their actions. So, the mechanism of control by the people is already in place and we don't need local proxies to do it for us.

Re:Worst ... idea.... ever

[The Fun Guy]

The president was NEVER supposed to be elected by popular vote. The Framers hated that idea to the core.

The framers of the constitution, for all that they believed in democracy, didn't really trust it to the extent that we do today, since no one really had any experience with running an entire country on democratic principles. The biggest lesson they took away from the ancient Greek polis and the Roman republic was how susceptible it was to being taken over by a charismatic leader and turned back into a monarchy.

The Electoral College was a mechanism put in place to prevent the rise of populist demagogues, on the assumption that the elected officials at the state levels would be less likely to be swept up in mob psychology furor to throw over the democratic structures in order to put a hero on the throne.

it's more complicated than this...

[malchus842]

The electors, who are actually elected federal office holders, albeit with a very short term and only one permitted act, cannot be bound by any state or federal law to vote one way or another. It's not possible to prevent 'rogue' electors from voting for anyone they wish, anymore than it's possible for a state legislature to force the state's senators and representatives to vote a particular way on a bill.

Right now, electors represent the party of the candidate they pledge (i.e. Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, etc). You would have to change this to non-partisan electors who agreed to vote with the national popular vote. And even then, you could not guarantee that the electors would do that, since they can't be forced to vote one way or another

The only way you will ever change this is to ammend the Constitution. And it's not clear that it should be changed. The Electoral College reduces the weight of large states and increases the weight of the small states, which makes it less likely a candidate will try to run up huge numbers in CA, NY, FL, TX, OH, VA and other large states so he/she can ignore the smaller states. Right now, you gain nothing from winning NY with say 70% of the vote vs 50%+1. That helps keep a few large states from dominating the process - the leveling effect limits their impact.

Of course, I know a lot of people don't agree with me. But that's no surprise, they mostly object to my calls to repeal (among others) the 17th Amendment and restore a true federal system.

It's an interesting thought, but...

[jfengel]

I'd be curious to see how enforceable the contract turns out to be. I can imagine a state changing its mind midway through the voting, or secretly changing its vote, or something. If the other states sue to enforce the contract, would it prove valid?

It does make recounts rather a mess. One advantage to the electoral college system is that as messy as the Florida recount was, at least it was in only one state. The election of 2000 was very close even in popular terms, and without the electoral college every single state would have ended up having a recount, because every single vote would matter. But gosh, other countries manage to work it out.

The states that have already talked about signing on are big states: California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri. States who are under-represented in the electoral college. The little states, who currently benefit from having their individual votes be worth nearly 3 times as much as a voter from California or New York, will pitch a major hissy fit.

I haven't run the numbers, but I suspect that such a scheme will tend to favor Democrats over Republicans, at least with the current distributions. Those small states tend to be red states. Certainly the one recent example where one can point to a candidate getting an advantage from the electoral college favored a Republican over a Democrat, so any attempt to swing it towards a proportional vote will be greeted in red states as an attempt to make it more blue.

Reform, but do not destroy

[GospelHead821]

I don't think we need to do away with the electoral college altogether. Allowing each state to have a minimum possible voice is valuable. New York and California already have a lot of electoral votes, but not entirely in proportion to their populations. The problems with the electoral college could be mitigated if only the votes from the college were more granular. As it is, in most states, the candidate that wins the popular vote in that state earns all of the electoral votes from that state. That means that 49% of a state's votes might "not count" in the final decision. As a citizen of Ohio, this problem was really driven home in the last presidential election. The two principle candidates were nearly equal in terms of popular vote, but the state's entire contribution was to George Bush. Let the two "senator" votes go to the popular majority, but let the "representative" votes be divided proportionally to the popular vote.

Doesn't work

[Jerf]

This doesn't work for two big reasons:

1. It's a "boil the ocean" solution; it doesn't work at all until it is fully operational. Nothing ever works like that with 50 states. This is also related to the next reason:
2. The benefits of cheating are too large once half or so of the electoral votes are in the agreement. The benefits of defecting, or threatening to defect, become large, because suddenly the votes become bargaining chips, useful to extract concessions from the other states. This makes it effectively impossible to get to all 50 agreeing anyhow; the more people in the agreement before it gets to 50, the larger the spoiler effect.

This would make things even worse, because of the horrible bargaining and politicing that would ensue around the electoral votes. Indeed, this would come to swamp the entire procedure, and the game would become getting the states to commit electoral votes, instead of convincing the people to vote for you. Hopefully, it's obvious why this is bad.

There's no idea so bad you can't extol its virtues for 600 pages.

Finally, to use the previous election for concrete names, do you really thing California is going to stand for seeing its electoral votes go to Bush? Or Texas for Gore? Unlikely.

I object on precedent grounds

[smittyoneeach]

If we want to change the Constitution, the procedure exists, and affords suitable prohibition of bad ideas.

Setting up an end-around will only weaken the sanctity of the document.

Peering into the future, the subsequent election of CowboyNeal ought to be a sufficient caution for us all.

Re:I object on precedent grounds

[smittyoneeach]

My point being that, if we want to do maintenance to the codebase, let's go ahead and branch formally.
Pussyfooting around would draw out the process, and any hairsplitting and legalese generated would be used to do something completely sick and wrong that feels good to some minority, and then we'd all look back and say "Wow, that Electoral College thing looked good at the time, but the dumb ideas that followed sure turned out to have all the appeal of a cancerous, bleeding ulcer. Would that we had kept to the existing process, rather than delving into hacks."

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[scheming daemons]

No... it would mean that the New York City resident's vote would count EXACTLY the same as the Wyoming rancher's vote. One each.

As it stands now, The average citizen in Wyoming is 1/160,000th of an electoral vote. The average citizen of New York State is about 1/300,000th of an electoral vote.

Why should the Wyoming citizen's vote count for twice as much as the New York citizen's vote?

One man (or woman)... one vote. Any system which gives greater weight to a citizen of one state's vote over the citizen of another state is a flawed system.

The electoral college system guarantees that the citizens of lightly-populated states like Wyoming, Montana, Deleware, and the Dakotas have a greater percentage say in who is the President than a citizen of California, Florida, New York, or Texas has.

That is a patently unfair system, and the only equitable system is one in which each of us has the same 1/280,000,000th say in who the next president is. That way, there won't be campaigning in just "swing" states... because every vote in every corner of the country counts the same. The Democratic candidate would have a reason to go to Texas and campaign... the Republican candidate would have a reason to go to Massachusetts to campaign... there are votes to be gotten there and they would count the same.

I am just as much a citizen of this country as some farmer in North Dakota is. His vote shouldn't be worth twice as much as mine.

Why tip-toe forward instead of walking?

[RyoShin]

An interesting proposition, but I think efforts would be better spend on getting Congress to disband the electoral college and actually having a vote count as a vote.

The Electoral College was useful in the pioneer days when information took much longer to get from place to place. Not everyone had the opportunity to be informed, so they voted towards a certain party and the state threw all of its electoral votes behind the winner of that popular vote.

The modern day is much different. Information is instantaneous, and people are finding out every little nuance about politicians if they dig deep enough. While the modern citizen probably isn't well informed, they do have the ability now to be informed- they merely need to go to a library to use a comptuer for an hour, or read a few newspapers. This means that citizens can discern which candidate they want. Votes are tallied quickly with the use of punch cards and now electronic voting machines (faults aside). The public's vote should be the only thing that counts now.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[AKAImBatman]

Why should the Wyoming citizen's vote count for twice as much as the New York citizen's vote?

Because that was the way our founding fathers configured it. Intentionally.

Or perhaps I should say that our Founding Fathers configured it so that each state would have a say, not the individual. The only reason why a person in New York has a vote at all is because the state of New York decides that you have a vote. Comparing your vote to the fellow in Wyoming is ridiculous. He's voting for how his state's electoral votes will be counted, and the New York fellow is voting for how his state's votes will be counted.

If Mr. New York wants to be a prick about it (Whaaa! Mr. Wyoming has more of a fraction of his state's vote! Whaa!) then I suggest that the state of New York remove voting privledges from its population, and decide the matter inside the state government. The population will then be forced to chose between their existing leadership and the right to vote for their state's electoral votes.

That is a patently unfair system

The only way it's "patently unfair" is if Mr. New York thinks his state should decide the outcome of ALL federal elections. In which case, what do we have states for anyway? Better dissolve the individual governments, and subject them all to total rule from the Federal government. It's so much better to give the President and Congress absolute power so that we can ensure that they are absolutely corrupted. While we're at it, why don't we dissolve the Senate? Wyoming has way too much power there, as well. Ooo, and why don't we eliminate the Supreme Court? They've been a real pain in the rear for the Soviet Socialist Republic of New York.

In case you're not catching on to the sarcasm, the electoral college is one of the many checks and balances built into the US constitution. Each of those checks that gets knocked out further weakens the nation. Thus whining about your "right to vote" is exactly that: Whining. The nation might even be a better place if we removed your right to vote. At least THAT would be constitutional.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[plague3106]

That is a patently unfair system, and the only equitable system is one in which each of us has the same 1/280,000,000th say in who the next president is.

No, you miss the point completely. The reason the the NYers vote counts 'less' is so that rancher out in the midwest doesn't have HIS rights trampled by the majority. Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed. That's EXACTLY why the electoral system is in place, to stop mob rule.

Please, go READ the words of the founders, they'll tell you exactly why mob rule is a bad idea. We are a Republic and NOT a Democracy for a very good reason.

Re:Outdated System

[AKAImBatman]

Failing to represent the small states? Bah! If the Senate and Congress stay they way they are, the small states still have plenty of representation in Washington.

Until some moron comes along and claims that it's "unfair" that the Senator from New York should have the same power as the Senator from Wyoming. Why don't we kick out all the checks and balances while we're at it?

I think the change would be positive, as it would give the majority of people control of one branch of government, while the majority of states has control of two, leading to a more balanced, less partisan federal government.

Have you been paying any attention? If the less populated states are not represented, they will be at the mercy of the large states. Causing damage to the less populated states (unintentionally or otherwise) could cause a complete economic collapse of US production and trade! I know the big shots in New York think they're the only ones of any importance, but the truth is that they're only managing the movement of goods that are produced elsewhere.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[Balthisar]

The thing is, you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how the goverment works and is *supposed* to work. Your vote is designed NOT to vote for the president. Even now you don't have a 1:280000000 voice for the choice; it's an illusion, and one that's not serving you well. That's not meant as a flame; way too much of our population suffers the same illusion.

YOU DON'T VOTE FOR PRESIDENT. That's not screaming; I'm just too lazy to use em tags. States determine how electors are assigned, and it's as simple as that. Your involvement is only indirect.

As said in way too many other posts here, the level of abstraction helps prevent stupid, flavor-of-day ideas from pervading our federal government. All we need is Hugo Chavez to appeal to misguided people at the last minute.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[plague3106]

To claify my last comment, Democracy failed. Study the end of ancient Greek civilization (as our Founders did).

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[scheming daemons]

No, you miss the point completely. The reason the the NYers vote counts 'less' is so that rancher out in the midwest doesn't have HIS rights trampled by the majority. Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed. That's EXACTLY why the electoral system is in place, to stop mob rule.

Sorry.. I get the point entirely.

My view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is as much a U.S. citizen as the rancher in Wyoming.

Your view: The inner-city merchant in the Bronx is less of a U.S. citizen than the rancher in Wyoming.

The Electoral college doesn't stop the "mob rule" scenario. It just rewards a different mob. It is the reason that Homeland Security money is being disproportionately given to communities with almost zero chance of being hit with a terrorist attack, at the expense of big cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas.

Majority rule is nothing more than mob rule, and if you're NOT in the majority, you end up being screwed.

Really.. so it is preferable that the will of a MINORITY of the people supercede the will of the majority? Think about your statement. You are advocating that a "mob" made up of a minority of the people "screws" the majority. That system is better HOW?

The REAL heart of your argument is this... when the "decision makers" are made up of urban, inner-city folk that aren't like you... it's a mob. When the "decision makers" are made up of bible-thumping, gun-toting, rugged individualists that are a MINORITY of U.S. population, it's "what the founders intended".

Bullshit. If Gore would have gotten 1000 more votes in Florida in 2000, would the resulting government be "mob rule"? How is a government run by a man who CAME IN SECOND NATIONALLY less of a mob?

Prior to 1865, blacks in slave states were considered 3/5 of a person in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.

You are advocating for a system that says a California citizen is worth 1/3 of a Wyoming citizen in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.

As far as electoral standing goes, today's Californian is worth less than a pre-civil war slave.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[JordanL]

Stop hyperventellating long enough to realize that what you really want is an even, full democracy. I would now like to introduce you to the four sociologically impossible forms of government for humans to successfully implement on a federal scale:

1. Communism
2. Democracy
3. Fascism
4. Anarchy

All four of these are perfect forms of government. All four of these are impossible to correctly implement with human beings. We are not a democracy. If you want your vote for the [INSERT FRINGE SINGLE ISSUE PARTY] party to count, move to the UK.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[barawn]

First, you do realize that the body that actually makes the laws - Congress - isn't proportional to population either? Why aren't you crowing to fix that as well? There are 250,000 Wyoming representatives to each Senator, and 500,000 to each Representative - California has 600,000 to each Representative, and 15 million to each Senator. Montana gets royally screwed: they've got only 1 representative per 900,000 people, which means Wyoming voters count nearly twice Montana voters!

The Senate is fixed (and unamendable) by the Constitution - the House of Representatives is not, though. And if any other system is flawed, we really should be abolishing states altogether.

The Electoral college doesn't stop the "mob rule" scenario. It just rewards a different mob.

You're wrong. The Electoral College system has one huge advantage over the "one vote per person" system. It's flexible. One vote per person is not.

Remember that the House of Representatives has an adjustable number of people in it: it hasn't been expanded since 1911, and all it takes is a congressional resolution to do so.

Taken to an extreme, if the House had 1 member for each person in the US, the Electoral College would essentially be "one vote per person". The difference that the two extra votes from the Senate give would be negligible. Thus, the Electoral College system (and, in fact, our entire government) has a nice, easily adjustable system that goes from "Democracy-like" to "Republic-like". Going purely to a popular-vote based system shoves that slider all the way to "Democracy-like".

If, right now, the Electoral College is favoring "mob rule" by smaller population states, that just tells you that the size of the House should be increased (which it should be). The ideal goal is a balance between the two.

I don't get it. You're crowing to change a system that fundamentally mimics the legislature. Why aren't you crowing to fix the legislature as well? Why is a democratic President so much more important than a democratic legislature?

You are advocating for a system that says a California citizen is worth 1/3 of a Wyoming citizen in deciding a state's representation in the Electoral College.

See above. Even if you fix this, a Montana citizen still has 1/2 the representation that a Wyoming citizen does in the House of Representatives, and a California citizen has a minimal representation in the Senate compared to a Wyoming citizen as well.

Why is this okay, but the Electoral College is not? Your argument essentially undermines the entire foundation of the country.

Which is fine, mind you! It might be the way to go - but it's not the way that the founders of this country wanted to go.

I disagree

[pavon]

Note - I am replying to a whole bunch of posts in general in this one not just yours - I don't want you to get the impression that I am putting words in your mouth.

Many of the original intentions of the founders no longer apply to the extent that they once did.

Yes, the founders originally intended to create a system that balanced direct democracy and rule by the Gentry class. Back then, the only people with any education to speak of were the wealthy. The only ones with opportunities to apprentice into government were the wealthy. Therefore they were the only ones fit to govern. That is no longer the case - we have universal (if mediocre) primary education, and anyone who shows merit and initiative can get an excellent university education, regardless of their class. While most politicians continue to come from political families, many others have risen from low beginnings, and have served the country well. The balances meant to keep the gentry in power are no longer necessary or beneficial.

Yes, the founders intended for the states to have more influence on the selection of national leaders, but they also intended for the scope of the national government to only deal with large inter-state issues that the individual states could not. Things like interstate and international trade, treaties, and national defense. The federal government has greatly exceeded those original aims, and now passes laws, collects taxes, and runs social programs that directly affects the individuals in our country, rather than indirectly though the states. Therefore, the citizens should have direct representation in the federal government, rather than indirectly through the states.

Yes, the founders originally created a system where representation was dolled out according geo-political boundaries, both in national government, within the individual states. But at the time, opinions and interests were very much clustered geographically. The difficulty of travel, the tightly knit communities, and the fact that the economies of each location was determined largely by it's natural resources, led to this. Again, this is something that no longer applies to the extent that it did when our country was founded. Now opinions on national issues vary as much between members of a community as they do between communities, and only the most popular opinions from each location get any representation in congress. Geographic representation used to promote a wide spectrum of views in congress, now it marginalizes them.

I agree that it is still useful for the states to have some degree of representation. My opinion is that for presidential elections the states should each have two votes corresponding to the two Senators, while the votes corresponding to Representatives should be determined by the popular vote. This would keep the current feature of smaller states having more influence than they otherwise would, while getting rid of the winner-takes-all garbage that turns elections into a political game and joke, rather than an accurate reflection of the will of the people.

I would even go so far to entertain the idea of electing the lower house itself according to some system of proportional representation, rather than districting. Why does my small arbitrarily (or gerrymandered) district need its own representative in Congress of United States of America? Really, now - are the views of its 0.25% of the population that much more different from the rest of the state to merit its own representation in the federal government? And yet a political party which holds over 10% of the registered votes - that represents views held by at least 10% of the population - by cannot get a single seat out of the 435 in the House.

Enacting proportional representation in the House, while maintaining state election(of populus or legislature) in the Senate, would preserve a balance between state (locally clustered) interests, and popular (distributed) interests. It would also break up the current two party syst

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[yourfnmom]

Well said. It seems like the Electoral College is also a great way of keeping the genaral population from being completely whipped into a hateful frenzy, distracted by a charismatic sociopath, and voting for him en mass. This would have the potential to destroy a direct vote democracy in the long run.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[barawn]

Yes, there is. An adjustable system that if taken to either extreme allows the "tyranny of the minority" and the "tyranny of the majority". Then, you just place the adjustable system right in the middle of the two, and you've got a system that's equally balanced between the two. And hey, if you want to be real smart, you set up two systems, one that's slightly dominated by the minority, and one that's slightly dominated by the majority, and check the two against each other, so that if the majority starts to dominate too heavily in one system, the other can reign it back, and vice versa.

Oh, wait. That's what we have.

If you think that the major population centers aren't getting a fair enough shake, argue for an increase in the size of the House of Representatives. That's what it's there for.

Re:What about smaller states

[Teancum]

I actually went through the stats with Utah (a strongly republican state) and noted that Democrats would not only gain electorial votes from Utah with a proportional voting system in place, but with just a tiny amount of additional effort they would have also gained additional electorial votes simply by trying appeal to the voters. Most Utah voters that are Democratic (and many Republicans for that matter) don't even bother to vote for President simply because they already know the conclusion - it is going to go Republican every time.

The same thing could be said about many other states. If Democrats are worried about losing electorial votes, it is because the political machines are rotting away and they are failing to get their message out and convince people to vote for them. It is not because the mechanics of the election are working against them.

It is a sad state that such raw politics such as "who is going to get the most votes" prevails rather than trying to inject true political debate into the process and encourage democratic participation. Or as important, to provide opportunities for more people thinking that their vote counts and can make a difference. The current electorial college fails miserably on this count.

Be honest with the ballots.

[Mahkno]

How about being honest with the ballots and put the Electors names on them instead of the Presidential candidate. You are electing Electors... not a President. Later in December the Electors actually do what they were elected to do. If the public knew who the electors were then maybe those craven souls would be persuaded to choose the best candidate for the country and not always vote party line.

The whole purpose of the electoral college

[wildman6801]

Remember the whole purpose of the electoral college is to make sure every state has a say in how the federal government works. If the electoral college is removed or changed so that the popular vote winner nation wide wins than that would create a huge problem. The problem would be that politians would place all of their money into the following states: New York, California, Texas, and Florida. The other states would get nothing. The reason: if all you have to do is win these four states or just a majority in three of them than you would win the election. I would rather see the electoral college stay the way it is so states like South Dakota and Vermont can get a say in the federal government too. I think it would be better off if each state would create a system where each voting distict's popular vote winner would get their winning electoral college member counted than a winner take all system state wide. I mean that for New York State if 30 voting districts popular votes were republican than all 30 would got to the repulican and the 20 other districs that went to the democrates would go to the democrates. This would make the system work better than a winner take all system.

Re:That's A GREAT Idea...

[Cocoshimmy]

Are you trying to argue that the system should be fair? Why should that be the goal? We want the system most likely to make America successful, not to appease someone's sense of fairness.

So what you're saying is that overrepresenting those who live in rural areas, who contribute the least to the economy and take the most from it (per capita), would make the US successful? Or maybe you're saying that having gun-toting, bible thumping rednecks have more of a vote would make the US successful?

Sorry for the stereotype, but I don't see how misrepresenting the majority will make a country successful. By the same argument, the system most likely to make the US successful would be a dictatorship, but it is certainly NOT what the intention was. As someone else mentioned, "all men are created equal" as stated by the creators of the country.

Electoral LOTTERIES are the solution

[macraig]

We select the candidates for our juries - who are asked to make life-and-death decisions regarding others' fates every day - by a random selection process, after which we wean them down by a bit of bipartisan examination. Can you imagine what would happen if we selected juries by election, where only those MOTIVATED (i.e. having some emotional vested interest) enough to desire it could become jurors? Can you imagine how that would impact the judicial process, if the parents of raped girls were allowed to "run" for the juries in trials of accused rapists and child molesters?

Now let's look at the state of our governmental electoral process: that happens to be exactly how we currently acquire our leadership. Only those ambitious, alpha-male-ish, charismatic, and egotistical enough are even considered for governmental leadership. By definition, people so ambitious are almost always those who possess the LEAST ethics: they're willing to do ANYTHING to achieve and retain the desired seat of power.

Witness the plight of Dean Cain, a candidate who was supposed to be more ethical than average: at one point he made honest statements about his less-than-typical existential beliefs, which was a good, forthright, and ethical thing, but then - when it became a public relations mess for him as he realized it would hurt his campaign - he soon backpedalled and tried to reinvent what he'd said earlier. What other candidates have done and will do is far worse than that.

I suggest that what we need is in fact NOT a popular-vote "tyranny of the majority" electoral process, but rather a lottery system analogous to the one we use for selecting juries. It would involve ALL the Americal people in the process, as anyone might be selected for consideration. It removes the inherent unethical advantages that career manipulators and the wealthy have enjoyed over the process.

Thomas Jefferson, I recall, was the one who coined the term "tyranny of the majority", and feared the lack of ethics inherent in any unchecked simple-majority rule; it was the reason the founders selected a republican form of democracy. Jefferson and other founders had good reason to fear it: they weren't part of the majority. Jefferson, for instance, was not a typical Christian, though he called himself one publicly for fear of public reaction: he was a Deist at best, who didn't believe Jesus was anything more than a man and great "philosopher", and was so bothered by the "mystical" elements in the New Testament that he wrote his own "Jefferson Bible" with just the history, philosophy, and ethics he so admired.

Though I've been preaching this notion to anyone who'd listen for years, I'm neither the first nor the only person to invent this idea: it was proposed in an article in the national Mensa Bulletin in, IIRC, the summer of 2005.

An electoral lottery would likely prevent charismatic and cunning but otherwise stupid and illogical people from having an unnatural advantage in the process. I for one would much rather take my Presidential chances with some average (and perhaps more ethical) Joes than the likes of George W. Bush and John Kerry. The current process effectively excludes both ethical and intellectual people.

The EC doesn't help rural voters...

[ThinWhiteDuke]

It helps voters living in low-population states.

The correlation between the two (being a farmer or living in a low-population state) is very low. Connecticut or Rhode Island, for instance, are everything but rural states. But they have a low population thus they benefit a lot from the EC. On the other hand, Texas is a very rural state and is penalized heavily by the EC system.

I agree with you on one point : The electoral college is designed to NOT reflect the popular vote.

But the rationale you propose - ie. to protect rural voters from the tyranny of city-dwellers - doesn't hold water. Actually there are many instances where the EC actively discriminates against farmers. Rural people in New York State are effectively discriminated AGAINST twice by the EC system. First they happen to live in a highly populated state so the EC vote / population ratio is low. Second, they are bunched together with lots of city-dwellers and don't stand a chance of ever being heard within the state. Have you ever heard of a candidate visiting rural New York State?

The EC system might make sense for a number of good reasons (state rights, history...) that could, or could not, offset its blatant unfairness. But the protection against mob rule is NOT one of them.

The EC "protects" the minority only according to ONE possible subdivision of the US population : the state borders. People who happen to fall in the minority according to any other criteria are not protected. Gays, blacks, mormons, taxi drivers, holocaust deniers, left handed people, people who liked the da Vinci Code movie, slashdotters, you name it... All of these people belong to a minority that is not protected by the EC.

Mob rule is prevented by the whole constitution. The EC has nothing to do with it. All democratic countries in the world have constitutions that prevent mob rules. Only USA have the EC.