Subject:
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Re: Electoral College
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 9 Nov 2000 18:49:42 GMT
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Viewed:
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168 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John DiRienzo writes:
> This will probably turn into a debate...
> Where are the guidelines of the Electoral College written? I checked the
> Constitution, and while it mentions a little about each state having
> representative electors in the same numbers as congressmen, it does not say
> much beyond that. Why does the winning candidate of a state receive all of
> the state's electoral votes, instead of the proportional amount of votes
> that he won? Where is this documented? Is this decided at the state level?
> Does each state have its own guidelines? I can't find the answer, so I
> asked. Hope some here know.
Well to my understanding much of this is handled at a state level. I know
Maine and one other state split votes based on congressional districts.
The rest of the states its an all or nothing afair with about half the states
binding the electors by law to vote for the winner of their state. The rest
are not bound by law and it has only every happened once where an elector did
not vote for the guy who won the state.
Now I don't know where exactly to look for documentation but my guess is that
most major new sites like www.cnn.com and www.msnbc.com would have links to
tell you more about it.
It is an interesting process and the founding fathers had a pretty good reason
for making it the way it is but the reasoning is outdated. Basically the
founding fathers thought we would have more than 2 strong party's where several
candidates would be in contention and none of them getting a majority of the
vote. Therefore the electoral collage was intended to get it down to 2-3
candidates and then the House Of Rep's would chose between those 2-3 candidates
to determine the president.
Eric Kingsley
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Electoral College
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| (...) Much of this is diccussed in a history of the electoral college at: (URL) is a link there to a .pdf file that is long, but (IMHO) worth reading - Very educational) (...) Yes. Maine is this way, I am still unsure how the two votes that are (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Electoral College
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| This will probably turn into a debate... Where are the guidelines of the Electoral College written? I checked the Constitution, and while it mentions a little about each state having representative electors in the same numbers as congressmen, it (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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