College Try
" (New Jersey) Governor John Corzine signed legislation (to ) deliver the state's 15 electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote.....Maryland, with 10 electoral votes, is the only other state to have passed the compact into law."
Associated Press, Jan. 15, 2007
This new procedure, now in effect in these two states for the 2008 presidential election, is an effort to by-pass the Electoral College. The College, consisting of 535 electors chosen by the states, has produced a President who did not win the popular vote several times, most recently in 2000.
Q. How are electors chosen?
A. Each state political party nominates a slate of electors, one for each congressional district in the state plus two more, for the number of senators. The Constitution does not specify how each state must choose electors, but the prevailing method is to award the total number of electors to the party whose presidential candidate has received the highest number of votes in the November election. States are free to apportion the electors by congressional district, or as a proportional share of the vote by party. Originally, many states allowed the legislature to select electors; although that is still legal today, no state does so now.
Although most electors vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, they are not obligated by law to do so, and some have voted for other people. Some states also permit slates of unpledged electors.
Q. How does the Electoral College work?
The electors meet in each state capital in December and cast votes for President and Vice President, which are then sent to the US Capitol where the presiding officer of the Senate (usually the Vice President) opens and reads them.
If no candidate receives a majority of all electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects one of the top three candidates to become President.
Q. What is the effect of the provisions passed by New Jersey and Maryland?
A. Since both states usually vote Democratic, they could swing the electoral vote to the Republican nominee if he wins the popular vote. Not a single "red" (Republican) state has adopted this plan.
Q. Should the Constitution be amended to eliminate the Electoral College?
A. Yes! If a candidate garners more than 50% of the popular vote, that candidate should become President . If there are three or more candidates, and no one gets a majority, hold a run-off in December between the top two.
Q Why would this be better?
A. Because the person elected President will have majority support, not merely a plurality of the vote in a group of states whose electoral votes add up to 270or more.
Had this method been in force in 2000, Al Gore would have become President and Joe Lieberman Vice President.
Associated Press, Jan. 15, 2007
This new procedure, now in effect in these two states for the 2008 presidential election, is an effort to by-pass the Electoral College. The College, consisting of 535 electors chosen by the states, has produced a President who did not win the popular vote several times, most recently in 2000.
Q. How are electors chosen?
A. Each state political party nominates a slate of electors, one for each congressional district in the state plus two more, for the number of senators. The Constitution does not specify how each state must choose electors, but the prevailing method is to award the total number of electors to the party whose presidential candidate has received the highest number of votes in the November election. States are free to apportion the electors by congressional district, or as a proportional share of the vote by party. Originally, many states allowed the legislature to select electors; although that is still legal today, no state does so now.
Although most electors vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, they are not obligated by law to do so, and some have voted for other people. Some states also permit slates of unpledged electors.
Q. How does the Electoral College work?
The electors meet in each state capital in December and cast votes for President and Vice President, which are then sent to the US Capitol where the presiding officer of the Senate (usually the Vice President) opens and reads them.
If no candidate receives a majority of all electoral votes, the House of Representatives elects one of the top three candidates to become President.
Q. What is the effect of the provisions passed by New Jersey and Maryland?
A. Since both states usually vote Democratic, they could swing the electoral vote to the Republican nominee if he wins the popular vote. Not a single "red" (Republican) state has adopted this plan.
Q. Should the Constitution be amended to eliminate the Electoral College?
A. Yes! If a candidate garners more than 50% of the popular vote, that candidate should become President . If there are three or more candidates, and no one gets a majority, hold a run-off in December between the top two.
Q Why would this be better?
A. Because the person elected President will have majority support, not merely a plurality of the vote in a group of states whose electoral votes add up to 270or more.
Had this method been in force in 2000, Al Gore would have become President and Joe Lieberman Vice President.
Labels: Electoral College, President
posted by Gerald S Glazer at 10:09 AM
2 Comments:
Ivan wrote:
Well I strongly disagree.
The value of the Electoral College is that it eliminates or reduces the advantage candidates from the most populated states have. This is an issue of states rights and Federalism. This also prevents the tyranny of the masses that can occur in a democracy where the populated areas with their own naturally biased opinions and concerns rule over the more rural or sparsley populated states.
If the President were elected by popular vote the President would always come from either the west coast or the east coast or be elected by the concerns of the people who live on the coasts.
The problem with this is that there are many important issues in the middle of the country that coast dwellers do not understand or appreciate and these will get ignored. Some of these include concerns of milk producers and farmers, concerns regarding the Great Lakes or Mississippi River, tornado issues, the interstate road system, etc.
On the other hand the city dwellers on the coasts have concerns that apply less toward the middle of the country like welfare, inner city poverty, crime, hurricanes, etc.
The point is that life is different on the coasts vs the middle of the USA for many reasons, but most people live on the coasts, therefore, they will be the ones who will elect the president if he were elected by popular vote. Ths is just the facts of statistics and demographics.
The Founding Fathers of the Constitution had the wisdom to understand this and to construct a system that limited this very unfair advantage that highly populated states that occurred in the very same geographical area had over other less populated geographical areas. The very same reason is why the Senate has equal represntation from each state regardless of the population.
Democracies can be very tyrannical when populations are skewed along race, religion, creed, and also geography. The Electoral College limits geographical tyrrany of the masses that can occur in a democracy just as the Bill of Rights protects minorities from the tyranny of the masses in a democracy.
We see proof of the effect of skwewed geography even today. Guiliani has chosen to ignore all of the early small states and concentrate on Florida and Super Tuesday. If we had a popular vote the candidates would never step foot in most of the central states and surely never in Iowa and possibly never in Wisconsin. These states as well as most of the non-coast states would be irelevant.
Our Founding Fathers were incredibly intelligent and wise. They created the most fair form of government the world has ever seen. Some of the things in the Constitution may seem strange at first, but with further reflection and thought the wisdom of their choices become apparent.
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