Abolish the Electoral College - Political Forum

Coyote Says · 10-09-2006, 12:54 PM

This is a crosspost from my political science class:

Quote:

In the 2004 Presidential election, if the official popular vote is correct, then George W. Bush deserved to win the Presidency.

In the 2000 Presidential election, however, If Gore had won he wouldn't have deserved it, even though he had more of the popular vote. Gore had 50,999,897 votes and Bush had 50,456,002 votes. But Nader had 2,882,955 votes, so that means that 53,338,957 people didn't want Gore in office. Of course, that also means that 53,882,852 people didn't want Bush in office, either*. How do we reconcile that?

The answer is twofold--abolish the electoral college and institute instant runoff voting**. The electoral college has begun to create the very problem that it supposedly addresses. Instead of campaigning in the populated cities, candidates focus their attention only on the states whose outcome is in doubt. The winner take all system of casting electoral votes makes this strategy a logical necessity. In 2004, here in California where the probability was good that all of our electoral votes would go to Kerry, we hardly saw hide nor hair of either candidate (don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily think that's a BAD thing).

The introduction of instant runoff voting combined with the abolition of the Electoral College would introduce a new dimension to campaigning for office in the United States. Here's how IRV works:

In 2000, I voted for Nader. If I had been given the option of ranking the candidates in order of preference, it would have looked like this-

1. Ralph Nader/Winona LaDuke (Green)
2. Albert A. Gore/Joseph I. Lieberman (Democrat)
3. George W. Bush/Richard B. Cheney (Republican)

Since Nader didn't receive a majority of the popular vote, my first choice would be discounted and my vote would then be cast for my second choice. Those that absolutely didn't want Nader in office would put him as their third choice.

This seemingly complicated method of counting ballots would be a snap with electronic voting (gasp!). Of course, it would require that every voting machine produce a paper receipt, and it would probably require some form of independent oversight regarding the software and the training of pollworkers.

Making the office of the Presidency directly beholden to the voters would restore America's confidence in the Republic and the voting process, and would help to end the polarization of Presidential politics by making a third Party actually count in the elections.

* http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781450.html

** http://www.instantrunoff.com/faq.asp

What do you all think?

CHUQ · 10-09-2006, 04:28 PM

I do not know if I agree with the restoring confidence in the system; that has been shaken by scandal after scandal, but either a demo or repub will be the pres.

It might give people a little more interest in voting and I thinlkthat 3rd parties might have a chance to have their agendas looked at a little closer.

Confidence is a subjective thing and I will have little confidence in a system where you spend $100 million to get a $500,00 a yr job; kinda like me spending a million to get a $30,000 a yr job. Just not gonna happen! Basically, parties are there to convince the working class of the concerns of the upper class and then have them vote on it. No matter, demo or repub, both are the upper class.

Coyote Says · 10-09-2006, 04:42 PM

True. The common American is in no way represented by the President. Maybe we never were.

You're right, though. If nothing else, it may get people off their butts to vote.

Coyote Says · 10-10-2006, 01:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

I think it's a pretty good paper in terms of political content (showing knowledge of the electoral college and also what a run-off is). However, I do not agree with the proposal. Firstly, the only real change this would have would be to merge third parties (which are already infintesimal) with the two large parties we have. So there's nothing really amazing about that, and it might even be considered anti-democratic.

So you don't feel that as third party candidates gain influence in elections, that their share of the votes will begin to grow? Won't political ads have to change if they have more than one candidate to attack? I don't remember many Nader attack ads in 2000. They must not have felt that he represented much of a threat.

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

Run-offs are more useful in countries with proportional representation like Brazil or Germany, not in majoritarian countries like the US, England and Australia.

Majoritarian? Do you mean that we elect the candidate with the majority of votes? We don't. We elect the candidate with a plurality of votes. A subtle, but distinct difference.

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

I do agree that we should abolish the electoral college. The paper makes an excellent point in the end about how the electoral college gives disproportionate power to swing states and thus makes the votes of some people worth far less than those of others. This is not democratic. Also, I think that it is not democratic that the candidate with the most votes loses.

Yeah that's pretty f@#$ed up right there. If the vote tally was correct, G.W. deserved to win the 2004 election. You don't know how much I hate saying that.

Izzibeth · 10-10-2006, 09:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Coyote Says

Yeah that's pretty f@#$ed up right there. If the vote tally was correct, G.W. deserved to win the 2004 election. You don't know how much I hate saying that.

however, in the same breath you could say if the vote tally was correct in 2000 (without electoral college) GW wouldn't have been there in 2004 in the first place (theoretically).

Coyote Says · 10-10-2006, 09:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Izzibeth

however, in the same breath you could say if the vote tally was correct in 2000 (without electoral college) GW wouldn't have been there in 2004 in the first place (theoretically).

I know. I was just trying to not sound like a bitter liberal

Coyote Says · 10-10-2006, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W.E.B. Du Bois

Well I don't know if you are a registered Democrat. I am, and I vote Democratic. I think that Democrats need to stay in touch with reality and resorting to saying things like [I|Fraud! Fraud![/i] keeps us away from reality and makes us ignorant to the lessons we need to learn. Whether there was SOME fraud or not, I believe we did lose that election. We need to know why and learn from it.

In other words, we need to look at how we lost the support of the American people on the issues.

It certainly seems more constructive. I am considering jumping ship (again) to Green, but that party has been dominated by a very vocal minority of extremists for a while now. I didn't and still don't consider Nader an extremist. Though I would have voted for Dean over Nader if given the choice. I never had a choice between either of them. That ticks me off a little.

CHUQ · 10-11-2006, 06:01 AM

WEB is correct about the 3rd parties and the stealing of their thunder. But what is sad is just as it is today, they (politicians) will say anything to be elected and then the games begin with this committee that committee issues are batted back and forth until they are largely forgotten, with the exception of a pay raise for those who represent us in Washington.

I guess what I am saying is the whole thing needs scraping and try to get it right this time, not wealthy elitist who tell me what to vote, but with people whose concern is the American people and not feathering their own bed. If such people exist.

emptypepsi · 10-11-2006, 06:23 AM

I don't know about most third parties, but I do know that IMO Libertarians have the right ideas on most ideas. However, I don't think the Dems or Reps would dare move into the territory of Libertarian platforms. Reps would risk losing their core Christian base with the Libertarian "do what you want" society platform, and the Democrats could maybe move in, though I think there are some issues that they'd not be able to catch up to them on.

The main problem with that particular 3rd party isn't so much that Demicans or Republicrats could steal the thunder, but that Libertarians are such an individualist party and lack the ability to effectively compromise as a team on many things. As a pundit once put it, it's like trying to herd cats. Their ideas are really great and nearly untouchable, but they usually can't compromise on a solid platform.

lordoftheworld · 10-17-2006, 02:55 PM

The electoral college was made on the idea that we would have people who actually know about how the government works electing the president, not some JO-SMO off the side of the street. It just depends on if you think the framers were incredibly smart by doing this, or you think now is the time to change it.