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 20:04:21 GMT
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Viewed:
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232 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Eric Kingsley writes:
> 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.
Much of this is diccussed in a history of the electoral college at:
http://www.state.ma.us/sec/ele/elecoll/collhist.htm
(There is a link there to a .pdf file that is long, but (IMHO) worth
reading - Very educational)
> 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.
Yes. Maine is this way, I am still unsure how the two votes that are
representative of the senate seats are decided though.
Do they go to whomever wins the state's popular vote?
or Do they go to whomever wins the most districts?
If the latter, then what happens in a tie?
(ME only has 2 districts)
Split them?
Go with the states popular vote?
> 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.
I found the PDF above from a link of the WHDH.com website.
>
> 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.
This is interesting.
From the history I read in the PDF file I refered to above,
I got the impression that the founding fathers actually
thought there wouldn't really be any parties at all. Though
I guess this would also create same problem you secribe of
having so many candidates that no clear winner would emerge.
I don't think the Electoral College is all that outdated.
I would like to see 1 or more of the "3rd Party" parties
become more mainstream and give us all more choices, in which
case the electoral college would be needed for the same reasons
you describe above.
I think it is interesting that the people of this country
are actually under the impression that they actually choose
the president. It's more acurate to say the people elect
the people they think will do the best job of electing
the president. It's a slight but important distinction. We
talk alot about democracy, but this country is infact a
republic.
If you go back far enough, in many states it was the state
legistlators who chose the electoral college representatives,
and not the state's population. So back then in these states
there was in effect another level of indirection.
There were many reasons for this complicated system, and
while some of them are long gone (travel distance, time,
communication, information,) others remain, and still other
new reasons to keep it have arisen. Not to mention the electoral
college of today is at least the 3rd version.
I don't think doing away with the electoral college is the
right solution. Instead I think we will see more and more
states change to systems like Maine's and (In think) Nebraska
where it is not winner take all. Having the Districts be
winner take all(1) vote in each district, and the other
2(senate) votes going to that states popular winner seems to
me to be an interesting comprimise worth trying out before
we go and throw the whole thing out the window.
Just my 2 cents...
-Kyle
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Electoral College
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| In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Kyle McDonald writes: <snip? (...) The 2 Senate Votes in Maine do go to the popular vote winner. <snip? (...) I would have to agree with you but for the reason that if they did away with the system it would make the (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Electoral College
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| (...) 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 (...) (24 years ago, 9-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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