🚀 go-pugleaf

Ernie Englehart (englehae@agcs.com) wrote:
: It's time to do away with the electoral college and elect the President
: based on popular vote.  Then the power to elect will be placed back into
: the hands of the voters, who could write in the man that they REALLY want
: to be their President.

What makes you think the electoral college takes the power to elect
out of the hands of the voters?

In fact, someone has recently proven that the opposite is true.
See a recent DISCOVER magazine for details.

The gist of the argument is:  the power of any one vote is proportional
to the liklihood that that vote will sway an election.  With one huge
electorate (popular vote, no electoral college), the chances of that
happening are nil.  There's no way you'd have an exact tie.  But with
electoral votes, the chances of your vote swinging the election are
much greater, since there's a greater chance of your vote swinging the
electoral votes for your state.  For real-life elections, it can be
mathematically shown that the electoral college INCREASES the power
of your vote.

Think of an election like the World Series.  Each state (electoral
region) is a game in the series.  To win, it's not enough to get
a zillion runs (votes) -- you have to win the most games (states).
Winning game 1 by 100 to 1 doesn't guarantee you the Series, just as
a landslide California doesn't guarantee the presidency.

The outcome of this is that candidates are required to pay heed to
all major sub-factions, rather than courting one large one.  As an
example, without the electoral college, a candidate might be able
to win the presidency by appealing to fundamentalist religious types,
and as a result create a theocracy.  (Or, on the opposite side,
a candidate could appeal to the liberal factions in California and
New York and ignore the more-conservative voters elsewhere in the
country.)  Since no one state can carry the bulk of a nomination,
the candidate is required to consider all sides of the issue.

That's probably not a very clear explanation of the theory, but
hopefully you get the drift.  Read DISCOVER if you want a better
explanation.  The bottom line is, the electoral college does NOT
take away the power of the voters, and in fact it increases it.

Gary