Electoral College, good or bad?

[vikingruler]

So do you think the electoral college prevents complete democratic elections or is a great thing. Also, if you have an alternative to the Electoral College it would be great if you post it.

I hate it. in the 2000 election, Al Gore got more votes than Bush, but since Bush won states with more "points", he won the election. The popular vote allows all citizens to have their individual voices heard. The country spoke, and more citizens felt Gore would be a better president than Bush. But thanks to the electoral college, democracy failed to elect the better person.

 

[Red Stranger]

OMG, you're still upset about 2000 election!!! Get over it, Gore lost, Kerry Lost. Clinton didn't even win a majority. Electoral College prevents mob rule, where one region would dominate over another.

 

[Evil Tyrant]

I do not think it is that bad a thing, half people in this country can't be bothered to stagger out and vote anyway, so the popular vote does not mean that much. I also doubt you would be complaining if they had elected a Democratic president against a Republican popular vote. Accept the fact that Bush is and will be the president until 2008.

 

[Fifty]

Well it basically comes down to two choices:

electoral college: swing states are all that matter

non-electoral college: population centers (california, northeast, illinois, florida) are all that matter.

 

[Aramazd]

The electoral college is a good thing it prevents regions from being too influential with the federal government. You need to get over the 2000 election it was 6 years ago.

 

[Perfection]

There are some benefits and some drawbacks to it.

The American voting system certainly could be improved, but the improvements would require so much political capital that it is probobly not worth it.

Overall, I find it works well enough.

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

Although I would like to provide tweeks to it, I like the electoral college. It makes us a republic instead of a democracy, which I think is far better. We are not just a nation of people, but a nation of States (though the Feds have been taking too much power). As stated above, otherwise places without large populations don't matter...ever. While swing states will change. It wasn't long ago that the South generally voted Democrat and the North generally voted Republican.

 

[Red Door]

Bad-Popular vote should decide!!!!

 

[Godwynn]

Bad. For example:

Wyoming: 3 electoral votes, 493,782 people = 164,594 people per electoral vote
Illinois: 21 electoral votes, 12,763,371 people = 607,800 people per electoral vote

In the end, it displays that some people's votes are worth more than others.

 

[The Tollan]

I think that proportional representation should be used to determine how many electoral votes each candidate attains.

The popular vote in each state would be tallied and distributed proportionally among the candidates. Some rounding of the percentages would perhaps be necessary unless the amount of electoral votes per state was increased by a large quantity.

After that proportional representation should be used for the House of Representatives.

 

[Chaos_BF1942]

I did think it was good, and thought what happened in 2000 would be unlikely to occur again.

But in 2004, Kerry could of gotten election when more than half of the people (50.7%) voted for Bush. In 2000 Gore had around 48.4%

 

[vikingruler]

Well it basically comes down to two choices:

electoral college: swing states are all that matter

non-electoral college: population centers (california, northeast, illinois, florida) are all that matter.

states like hawaii and alaska only have 1 or 2 electoral votes, that means candidates will never campaign in those states, but in states like california and texas who have 55 and 34 they will the majority of the candidates attention. the reason they have so many votes is because of their population which is primarily in major cities. but with the popular vote they will lose millions of votes if they don't campaign in those "small states", like hawaii. honolulu has close to 400,000 citizens alaska, has a low population has around 625,000 citizens. Thats over 1,000,000 people. Adding all capitals of states with few votes and you still can compare to huge cities like LA and NYC. BTW, i'm not still upset with the 2000 election, i'm using it to make my point, if their was the popular vote, gore would have won.

 

[Godwynn]

states like hawaii and alaska only have 1 or 2 electoral votes,

The minimum amount of electoral votes a state can have is 3 [2 senators, 1 representative]

 

[MjM]

Meh, California gets a bunch so I dont really care. I think states with a bigger population should get a bigger say.

 

[Aramazd]

states like hawaii and alaska only have 1 or 2 electoral votes, that means candidates will never campaign in those states, but in states like california and texas who have 55 and 34 they will the majority of the candidates attention.

Wrong!!! No one campaigns in Califonia or Texas. Most of the campaigning is done in the swing states.

 

[Lambert Simnel]

Looks like a historical anachronism to me.

Why not just have the guy who gets the most votes wins ? It'd be boring, straightforward, very vanilla, and uncompromisingly democratic.

 

[skadistic]

Bad. I'd rather see a popularly elected POTUS but thats not how our Federal Republic ( the US is not a democracy)works.

 

[Aramazd]

Bad. I'd rather see a popularly elected POTUS but thats not how our Federal Republic ( the US is not a democracy)works.

AFAIK, no country is a democracy.

 

[Tenochtitlan]

They should make it a lottery. It will work just as good.

 

[JohnRM]

I voted, "The Radioactive Monkey won the 2000 election."