Electoral college

I'm a real dunce when it comes to this stuff, so please forgive me...but why do we even have this system? In this day and age when the popular votes can be counted and transmitted instantaneously, why not just the popular vote stand? I understand when, prior to the digital age, it took a long time to get results across the country, a system like this was necessary, but now...why not get rid of it? Tradition?

Re: Electoral college

I ask that all the time. It won't be long until we are the only 1st world (or 2nd world, for that matter) country that isn't actually a Democracy.

Four times in election history a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the election.

In 1824, Andrew Jackson won both the popular and the electoral vote—that is he received more votes than any of the other candidates. But, no one in the four-man race won a majority, or more than 50%, in the Electoral College, so the House of Representatives decided the outcome. The House picked John Quincy Adams, who had come in second in the popular and electoral votes.

In 1876, Samuel J. Tilden won 51% of the popular vote, while Rutherford B. Hayes captured 48%. However, Hayes won 185 electoral votes, while Tilden got 184. A special electoral commission picked Hayes to be president.

In 1888, Benjamin Harrison became president by winning 233 electoral votes, even though he received only 47.8% of the popular vote. His opponent, Grover Cleveland, garnered 48.6% of the popular vote, yet received only 168 electoral votes.

In 2000, Al Gore won 48.38% of the popular vote and 266 electoral votes. George W. Bush won only 47.87% of the popular vote but received 271 electoral votes, thus won the election.

Re: Electoral college

Because clearly the government doesn't think we're capable of electing our own officials. No, in all seriousness, Doesn't it have to do with the fact that we are a democratic republic or something?

Electoral college

Why do we have the Electoral College?

The founding fathers established the Electoral College in the Constitution as a compromise between election of the President by a vote in Congress and election of the President by a popular vote of qualified citizens. However, the term “electoral college” does not appear in the Constitution. Article II of the Constitution and the 12th Amendment refer to “electors,” but not to the “electoral college.”

Since the Electoral College process is part of the original design of the U.S. Constitution it would be necessary to pass a Constitutional amendment to change this system.

Note that the 12th Amendment, the expansion of voting rights, and the use of the popular vote in the States as the vehicle for selecting electors has substantially changed the process.

Many different proposals to alter the Presidential election process have been offered over the years, such as direct nation-wide election by the People, but none have been passed by Congress and sent to the States for ratification as a Constitutional amendment. Under the most common method for amending the Constitution, an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress and ratified by three-fourths of the States.

Electoral college

The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy. James Madison worried about what he called "factions," which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madison’s fear – which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed "the tyranny of the majority" – was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could "sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." Madison has a solution for tyranny of the majority: "A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking."

From factcheck.org

Message edited 10/27/2012 6:20:45 PM.