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| Re: List Of Books Palin Tried To Have Banned (352663) | |||
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Re: List Of Books Palin Tried To Have Banned |
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Posted by GP38/R42 Chris on Sun Sep 7 08:33:32 2008, in response to Re: List Of Books Palin Tried To Have Banned, posted by Spider-Pig on Sun Sep 7 06:08:17 2008. In order to accomodate the small-state/big-state compromise that led to the 2-vote-per-state Senate, they needed a method to allow small states slightly greater weight in selecting a President. There was great fear in the past, and still is today that in a strict popular vote election, the urban states would decide all contests, and no candidate would even consider the issues of the smaller and rural states. That still is the basic reason for it, even if some states are less important. Another reason is sort of a block. In a close election for President, there would be great temptation for local officials to pad the vote if the election was strictly by popular vote. That can happen with the EC too, however, at least then it still is only limited to that particular state. Even in recent years it still can happen. Take Chicago and St Louis where counts have been suspect a few times. Another reason is that recounts are also then held to only a particular state or states where a problem arose. Take Florida for example in 2000. Consider the mess of a nationwide recount, with 50 state Supreme Courts, 50 sets of state election officials, and tens of thousands of local election boards. Some of whom are going to cheat to get their man over, and you know that can happen. We would still be recounting today in a close election like 2000. Also, there is the matter of needing a majority. In the electoral vote system, it is quite possible to have a majority of electoral votes without a majority of popular votes (we have seen that in 2000)....George Bush PI was the last president to be elected with a majority of popular votes.....Clinton, Carter, Nixon and Kennedy all were elected with less than 50% of the popular vote. But the EC all gave them a majority as the splinter party votes were eliminated at the state level. Occasionally, you can have a third party taking states, which happened last in the 60's. In a direct vote system, the requirement for a majority would be necessarily abolished. This is perhaps acceptable, but could lead to Presidents elected with over 60% opposition. While there are clear problems with the Electoral College bit there are also advantages to it, changing it is very unlikely. It would take a constituitional amendment ratified by 3/4 of states to change the system. It is hard to imagine the smaller states agreeing. |
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