Once upon a time, it was thought that a Presidential Electoral College would be a good way to avoid ungentlemanly politicking that would result in the election of the winner of a beauty contest rather than a person of substance and worth to occupy such an august office ... or vice office. The original idea was to have a College to avoid political parties and partisanship. (Needless to say, this idea didn't work) The notion was that Electors would be especially able and smart people who only would cast their votes for the good the country, etc. etc. etc.

The current composition of the Electoral College varies between the 50 states and it also is up to each state to decide how the electors may vote. Some states have rules that require all of its electors to vote for the winner of the popular vote of that state. Others divide the electors in proportion to the way in which the popular vote turned out. And I am not sure but some states even today theoretically allow their electors to vote as they choose (but since being an elector usually means that person has been active in a political party (most likely either Rep or Dem only), there are other pressures that may be brought to bear to keep the electors in line.

Many times, it has been proposed to do away with the College. But the initiatives seem to disappear and I suspect it mainly is due to the desire of the Rep and Dem parties to keep the college... in so far as they have invested time and energy to be positioned to take advantage of the College as best they can in the various 50 states.

The number of electors a state is allotted is based upon the total of the number of senators plus representatives that the State sends to Congress. So it is basically demographically derived with the most populous states having the greater number of electors.

Each elector's vote counts and the candidate who gets the most electors' votes wins.

California is the most populous state so they have 55 electors. Texas is next largest with 34, New York (which has been in a population decline) 31, Florida 27.

what gets my goat is that the bi-cameral system is supposed to address the concerns of people living in underpopulated states by giving equal and proportioned representation in the form of senators/reps - there are always 2 senators, no matter the pop, and then a certain number of reps based on the pop... so why should the prez election be anything more complex than a blanket popularity contest?? isn't that what leadership is, in a democracy- being the most acceptable of an array of distasteful choices? the electoral college is without a doubt the most backwards part of our system - of course, its still better than having the supreme court decide (can you say over-reaching???? the judicial branch appointing the executive?? talk about a conflict of interest

Taw; yep - pretty much. GWB lost the last election, but in the electoral college he won because of the differences between states who split their electoral votes and those who cast them all together on behalf of the majority. IMO there's no point voting on the president in those states, since whatever color your state is will decide who gets those votes.

incumbents enjoy a 90% re-election rate - our country feels like its in the crapper, everybody hates politicians, and there is (despite the impression of widespread apathy)an active and growing number of voters. whats that tell you about the system ? well it shows districts have been redrawn based on income, race and religion to favor ALL politicians- it shows you that the parties have managed to dismantle reasonable, rational dialog and replace it with hyperbolic euphemistic well-poisoning soul-sucking 'talking points'. it shows you that the system is broken from 40 years of abuse, misuse, and neglect, and frankly it shows a republic that is slowly destroying everything it once stood for in the search for modernity, convenience and security.

p.s. the whole reason for the electoral college(as far as i remember from civics) was to enable states to vote at state-level (eg, no federal-ballot) and then send those votes (in the form of electors) to the College to pick the president, so they wouldn't have 30 million ballots to gather from every state and tally at once. in other words, a proper federal election was NOT practical back THEN because people rode horses - to Indy11 and anyone who doesn't violently oppose the college NOW, please tell me - what purpose does it serve in the modern world of autos and planes except to confuse everybody and discourage voters by making them feel disconnected and impotent?

@Cold_Void- I only got one ballot in the mail, not three. There was a spot clearly marked "Declare a party affiliation before voting".

@Taw-

Legally a single polling place is maintained at the county auditor's office for those who for some reason can't mail ballots, I think. You're absolutely right about votes being lost, or slowed down, or corrupted in some other fashion. I'm sure that had a great deal to do with many ballots miraculously being 'found' at polling places, or in warehouses, or backs of trucks, etc during the vote tally process at our last major election here. Everytime the count swung to one side, more votes were found for the other.

My biggest beef with the mail-in system is that it allows voting from the comfort of your home. While this may be handy for some, I think it is a voter's duty to physically make the effort to leave the Xbox behind for a few minutes to drive to the polling place and cast the ballot. To me, that is an essential part of the democratic process, and shows (most of the time anyways) that if you're voting, you care about the issue or the position. Also, with the mail in votes, the voters pay the return postage, and while that is a measly little $0.39 (well, actually twice that now), it introduces the little idea of having to pay to vote, which I am very uncomfortable with.

great point well made CV!

do you know, I've learnt more about the American electoral system in this thread than I learnt throughout school and university, and endless flim-flammery from John Snow and his swing-o-meter every American election.

@C_V: The civics lesson is true but only partly. In terms of teaching modern kids how to make sense out of the Electoral College it is the only explanation that works without openly inviting a political debate. Even so, in modern times, the practicallity of "state level" voting is lost as well.

Until there really is a third political party that is at the same level as the Reps and Dems, I don't think we will see much of a change. Also, were there to be a serious 3rd party threat to break up the current Two Party monopoly, rest assured that there would be a good deal of "bi-partisan" gerrymandering going on to make it more possible only for either a Rep or Dem to win office at the Federal level. The Libertarians and everyone else need to take over seats in the City and County level and then move up to State legislature in conjunction with Congressional office.

This is very hard to do.

Edited by - Indy11 on 9/17/2006 6:51:26 PM

grass roots need watering, and what better for libertarian ones than a time of disillusionment about political parties among fiscal conservatives and civil-libertarians? growing from the local level has been our strategy for a long time, and it will probably continue to be so for the forseeable future so long as people vote in lock-step "so my vote isn't wasted" - of course the whole point is to show people that having an L in front of your name doesn't make you an incompetent flake, get more experienced canidates, and get more exposure for the party and its platform

i don't get the controversy over the two-party primary and i think the supreme courts ruling about political association is sound. but, i also think it will probably discourage the election of moderate bi-partisan canidates

re:paying to vote via postage - if you weren't paying the 32 cents directly you'd be paying 50 cents for the taxes(and collection there of) to buy prepaid envelopes for every voter(some of whom might not even return it) so is it really a big deal? <-that's how a libertarian's mind works, see?

linky

Edited by - Cold_Void on 9/17/2006 7:15:56 PM

bumping because i didn't want to start a new topic about the general election-

this is a letter to the editor i wrote and submitted to our local paper a few minutes ago - although this is about one state initiative, voters across the US should be concerned about Howie Rich because his initiatives have popped up across the country -like bad spam. the worst of them are his 'Property Fairness Act' initiatives which claim to reign in eminent domain but gut environmental protection and pay fatcat developers(like Howie) for violating that law if the environmental regulation isn't outright repealed. this is outrageous! anyways, here's the letter;
Are the voters of Eastern Washington completely oblivious to Initiative 933's danger and why

has the Herald failed to cover this critical issue facing the voters?

This Initiative, claiming to be a reaction to recent overly-broad rulings on eminent

domain;the government's power to take land with equal compensation, is deceptively titled the

Property Fairness Act, but it's nothing of the sort. In fact it's aim is to make the state

pay land owners to comply with environmental regulations!

While this bill calls itself the Property Fairness Act it is a wolf in sheeps clothing,

designed to line the pockets of land developers with the taxpayer's money for their failure

to comply with the law. The front groups sponsoring this bill wish to use a poorly made

judicial decision regarding eminent domain as a cover for overthrowing our most important

evironmental protections.

And where, oh where did this terrible initiative come from if not a grassroots organization?

Well as a matter of fact, it was written by a New York land developer/real estate tycoon

named Howie Rich and has been smeared onto ballots across the nation with Mr Rich's slimey

money. You may have seen this signature gathering campaign right here in Moses Lake, I know

that I was suckered by one operating at our local Walmart early last month.

If you're like me, and you signed the petition supporting I-933 because the signature

gatherer consciously LIED and said the initiative is about eminent domain, you are most

likely as outraged as I am. I urge everyone in Washington to tell their friends, I-933 - the

Polluter Payment Act is not for us! send Howie Rich back in NY a mesage; Our Democracy is not

for sale!

www.howierichexposed.com - get the facts

P.S. i'm ashamed to learn this guy's a libertarian - looks like I'm goin green now