Hellobee Boards

@FutureMrsMcK: Totally true about candidates not spending time in states they know will go one way or the other. I swear in Texas the presidential candidates don't even run their ads. If they do, they are few and far between!

@FutureMrsMcK: wow! i am canadian so i wasn't sure how that worked. crazy!

I learned in high school that the electoral college was implemented because the founding fathers didn't want to leave such an important decision in hands of the uneducated populace.

Personally i think it's awful and should be abolished. It contribues to people thinking their vote doesn't matter and to candidates pandering to a handful of states.

I think it should be abolished. It's ridiculous that a candidate could win the popular vote and still lose the election because as FutureMrsMcK pointed out, the electors aren't bound to vote for any particular candidate. With the popular vote, each person's vote would actually count--it would be majority rule, which is how it should be.

@sloaneandpuffy: I disagree. NYC has a population of about 8 million people, which in a country of 300+ million is only 2.6% of the total population. Even the top 10 biggest cities together only add up to 7.9% of the total population.

With the EC, however, most states get completely ignored. Candidates don't visit small states with a few votes or states that are clearly going to vote one way (TX, CA, NY...) because they don't need to...instead they focus all of their time, energy and money on mid-size swing states, like PA, OH, FL and VA. That's in no way fair to the rest of the country.

My biggest issue with the EC is that people often use it as an excuse not to vote. I'm sure there are plenty of Obama supporters in Texas who don't bother voting because they know it won't make any difference anyway.

@Mrs. Blue: I'm in Texas and I saw one or two tv ads and never heard anything on the radio.

If there was no EC I'd definitely feel like my vote counted more.

@FutureMrsMcK: What she said! I think it shouldn't matter to the president if my vote is from Virginia or Oklahoma!

I agree it should be abolished. There's not even anything saying the elector needs to vote for the winning candidate. It's antiquated and useless, IMO. And it overly complicates what should be a very simple thing.

Question, though -- wouldn't candidates still ignore states where they knew one party or the other would get the overwhelming amount of the popular vote?

@pastemoo:

4 times in history a president has been elected having lost the popular vote but winning the EC:

John Quincy Adams who lost by 44,804 votes to Andrew Jackson in 1824
Rutherford B. Hayes who lost by 264,292 votes to Samuel J. Tilden in 1876
Benjamin Harrison who lost by 95,713 votes to Grover Cleveland in 1888
George W. Bush who lost by 543,816 votes to Al Gore in the 2000 election.

Lincoln only got 39.9% of the popular vote, but the other 60% was split between Douglas (29.5%), Breckenridge (18.1%) and Bell (12.5%). So he didn't get more than 50%, no, but he got more than everyone else.

@sunny: That's true, people have difficulty sometimes with the system because the may want to support 1 particular party (say NDP) but find that the NDP candidate in their riding is a dolt and would rather see their local Liberal candidate get in. On the whole though, you choose who you identify with as a party as opposed to an individual person and you vote for your party. In doing so you entrust your vote to that party, and whoever their current leader is becomes your lead representitive. Though it doesn't happen often, a party leader could loose their seat. They typically run in locked in ridings. Should that ever happen, typically someone from their party would step down and a by-election would be held and they would run in that riding, or the party would use that as a sign that their current leader isn't a good candidate and the party will host another leadership convention and a new leader will be named.

FWIW, I think Jack Layton was a superior politician and an amazing leader, but I am so far from NDP I could never have supported him or his party. That to me is an example of an amazing politician that wouldn't get my vote because he is of the wrong party.

We were discussing this tonight. The electoral college was originally formed because so many people were uninformed about the elections. Also, only white, male, landowners could vote.

With all of the technology available today, the popular vote ought to be the one that counts. If not that way, then it should be a percentage. If a state has 30% vote for Candidate A and 70% for Candidate B, then A should receive 30% of the electorates, while B receives the 70%. This election looked quite close, and if a candidate received 51% of the state's popular vote, why should they receive ALL of the electoral votes? Even if that isn't exactly how it works, that's how it seems.