New attack launched on Electoral College

[question everything]

New attack launched on Electoral College

By Erica Werner
ASSOCIATED PRESS

November 20, 2004

WASHINGTON – President Bush would have been re-elected this month even without the Electoral College, but that hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of some Democrats for abolishing it.

Arguing that voters in populous states such as California are underrepresented by the system, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, introduced a constitutional amendment yesterday to eliminate the Electoral College and provide for direct election of the president and vice president... The introduction of Lofgren's amendment is symbolic. Coming on one of the final days of the 108th Congress, it won't be acted on this year. But she said she hoped it would draw attention to the issue.

(snip)

With 500,000 residents, Wyoming has one elector for every 165,000 people, according to Lofgren's office; California has over 35 million residents, which amounts to one elector for every 635,000 people. Wyoming has three electoral votes, while California has 55, by far the most in the nation.

(snip)

Numerous attempts to abolish the Electoral College have failed. Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 states.


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20041120/news_1n20elect.html

[DavidDvorkin]

1. Without the damned EC, the SOB

wouldn't have been in the White House in the first place.

[shesemsmom]

6. I am in total agreement

I would love to see it gone. Not politician in our life time will do it with out A lot of prodding from us

[flaminbats]

19. Zoe Lofgren should replace Pelosi..

being one of 24 House Democrats to vote against the Appropriations bill and introducing this amendment is more than enough for me! :yourock:

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JaneEyrez]

3. that was funny n/t

[SaintAnne]

5. of course

I like your reasoning.
btw, EC was put into place because of our founding fathers who worried about people who would elect a president they didn't even know, in other words they worried about "mob rule"

[tk2kewl]

4. could increase the total number of electors without an amendment

that qould mean a congress of about 1700 members. cut their salaries by 1/4 while we're at it and we wont increase the cost and we'll have a lot fewer career politicians

[jmowreader]

10. And what will that do?

There are two ways to "fix" the electoral college--eliminate Winner Take All and eliminate the EC.

The Republicans want to eliminate Winner Take All and issue EV to the candidates based on the percentage of the vote taken in each state. The intent is to end California and New York's status as the 800-pound gorillas of the Democratic Party. It would also end the three-and-four-vote states' status as the 800-pound gorilla of the GOP. I am off Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; on one of those days I'll look at what proportional EV allocation would have done to this election.

Democrats want to go to direct popular voting for the president. This is a better way to go.

[jsu2297m]

12. Electoral college

The idea behind the electoral college is to give a say to everyone.
Otherwise, the huge population centers elect the president, while the sparsely populated rural areas have no say. Think of it like this: No candidate will campaign in an area with a couple of million votes, when they could hit the areas with 7 to 10 million votes. These are merely example numbers. Also, if you think the last two elections were hotly contested, imagine if 1 vote could decide the presidency. There would be a court battle every four years. Is that what America needs? This is just food for thought.

[VegasWolf]

16. Nonesense, the electorial college was put in place to correct

a bad vote made by the unwashed public. Bear in
mind that in these times there were only 13 colonies
and the only people that could vote were white, male,
property owners, and they were afraid that these people
would select the WRONG person. The absence of historical
knowledge by the average citizen is outstanding.

Get rid of this historical mistake!

[Thor_MN]

29. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the "unwashed" public

couldn't possibly have known much about a candidate from the ther end of the colonies. No person could conduct a campaign nationwide - no TV - no radio - even by the time they had telegraphs, how do you give a speech via telegraph?

The EC was a means for people to elect someone they could trust to represent them in the capitol in electing the right person. In my mind it has been rendered obsolete by technology.

I wish that it would work in it's intended fashion and the electors would throw the current crop of clowns onto the mercy of the world court for their war crimes by electing ANYONE other than *.

[VegasWolf]

30. The "unwashed public" consisted of a relatively small pool

of white, male, property owners. These people communicated
with each other. The basic idea of the electoral college
was that an even smaller "wiser" set of people could correct
any potential errors made by the white male property owners.

It's long past time for this anachronism to die and allow
the poeple to elect the president directly.

[Yupster]

35. The original Constitution did not even

presuppose that there would ever be a popular vote for president.

You could Constitutionally elect a president today without a popular vote. It's just the states that choose to have a popular vote for president. It is not anywhere mandated.

[0007]

23. There should be a court battle every four years until we can get it

right with the machines. For Christ sake this is 2004 we should know how to count. I'm tired of this stone age logic of candidates will campaign only in populated areas. The stage coaches quit running to Wyoming a long time ago.

If we can put a man on the moon I'm more than sure we can count all votes and get it right!!

[American Tragedy]

24. Yeah it's a lot better now with candidates only hitting like twelve states

and ignoring all others, including less populated states like Wyoming, Nebraska, Vermont, Rhode Island, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Utah, etc.

Also, your argument that the rural areas would have no say is senseless. Individuals in rural areas would have one vote each, just like those in urban centers.

[tk2kewl]

27. it will turn out the same

as the election.

if you increase the number of electors to be proportional to the population, then it follows that the electoral college vote will have the same result as the popular vote.

The point here is that you can change the makeup of the electoral college without a constitutional ammendment, but to abolish it you do.

[jmowreader]

33. The huge population centers still do elect the president

Go to http://www.electoral-vote.com and look at the map. Examine Texas and the three-vote and four-vote states that all went for Bush. Now examine New York, New England and the west coast, who all went for Kerry. These states are background noise--unimportant, because you know right at once how they'll fall. The states that elect the president of the United States are all huge population centers--Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania. There are others, but you get the idea.

Because of the electoral college and the way it works, Bush could take Oklahoma for granted; he didn't even have to campaign in the state. Kerry had the same option in Washington.

[Kolesar]

21. I'll have to watch for your analysis

If you are going to do it, I would like to read it. PM me so I don't miss it, please.

[Charlie Brown]

7. Yes Yes! Get rid of it!

My state was projected red within thirty minutes of the polls closing. I really felt like my vote didn't count.

[Garbo 2004]

20. My state was projected blue before the polls closed.

Of course it's California so that wasn't much of a leap. ;)

[hippiechick]

8. Yes, please ...

:hippie:

[eleny]

9. I agree with this

Let the registration drives begin with even more earnest.

[NEOBuckeye]

11. While we're at it let's abolish the Senate and make the House proportional

Like Parliament. Hence if the Democratic Platform wins 55% of the vote, we get 55% seats. If the GOP gets 40% of the votes, they get 40% of the seats. If the Greens win 3% of the vote, they get 3% of the seats. Etc.

The Speaker of the House becomes the "Prime Minister" and therefore, the Head of Government. (Imagine Nancy Pelosi?) Meanwhile, the Presidency should be scaled back to the ceremonial Head of State role that Reagan proved it was good for.

Yeah, I know. It's a tall order. But I think moving to an actual representative Parliamentary-style system is the next logical step after abolishing the Electoral College. A few Dems are thinking about this as well. Gov. Dean actually suggested moving to proportional elections in his debate earlier this year with Ralph Nader.

Bottom Line: The Republicans cannot reign forever, and they will certainly fall or be brought down eventually. As much as they have corrupted the system, it will probably crumble with their hold on power. We need to be ready with a massive, revolutionary plan to rebuild the system 100 times better in the aftermath. This is the way to go.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Don't know about abolishing the Senate.

With their longer terms they have more to lose if they get caught up in the current passion of the House. The Senate has often been a very good counterbalance against the extreme short term interests we get from the House, and is less prone to be swayed by crap like the 'Contract On America'. But a proportional House is an interesting idea, if we could work out the mechanics of it.

[NEOBuckeye]

14. Good Point

The Senate definitely serves as a check and balance under the current U.S. Presidential system. Would it still be necessary in a U.S. Parliamentary, though? If we follow the British standard, it might be somewhat akin to the House of Lords.

[flaminbats]

17. not if each state has as many Senators as Representatives..

but they would still be elected statewide, not by predetermined districts. The solution is proportional representation in the Senate and Congressional districts in the House.

[IndianaGreen]

40. The Constitution bars abolishing the Senate

It is the only thing that cannot be changed by amending the Constitution because it was the Senate that preserved the concept that all the States were equal.

If you want to abolish the Senate, you will need a Constitutional Convention, and that will produce an entirely new Constitution, perhaps one with Jesus as Lord, and without a Bill of Rights.

[SoCalDem]

15. This actually passed back in the 70's in congress.. senate shot it down.

I wish it would happen, but more states are repube strongholds than back then.. I don't have high hopes for anything changing.

[nolabels]

18. That will happen

NOT

I say screw it, us Calies should should take our marbles and go home.

We declare sucession tomorrow, ship the nuklier (waist or otherwise) to Reid in Nevada and live happilier ever after

On Edit: spelling

[truthisfreedom]

22. i love how it's the Democratic party fighting for Democracy.

this makes the thugs wince and wet their shorts.

[Laelth]

25. I agree.

Good riddance to the EC! Won't happen, of course, in the current political climate, but we can dream, can't we?

-Laelth

[flaminbats]

28. it might happen..

if Democrats are united for democracy.

[Pepperbelly]

26. I disagree with Zoe ... I think the EC should be modified, not abandoned.

I think that the idea of the EC is workable, but the current winner-take-all is flawed. A non-EC selection would, IMO, be even more rife with fraud than what we have right now.

[IndianaGreen]

34. EC is undemocratic and a throwback to a Constitutional era in which...

slavery was okay. Abolish the EC and be done with it!

[Raiden]

37. It could possibly work.

I am for the most part in favor of scrapping the EC, but it could possibly be workable if it is reformed. The way I see it, you could take congressional districts and give one electoral vote to the overall winner of that district. The overall winner of the state could get two electoral votes for the state's two senators. The only problem is that this would make gerrymandering a national political game, and in order to do it this way, we would have to outlaw gerrymandering.

[baba]

31. Wouldn't abandoning the EC

...make it easier for the Republicans to steal elections? All they need to do is pad their vote totals in their favorite precincts, counties, and states. Just like they did this year to create a "mandate" with the popular vote!

[Democat]

32. Bush only "reforms" Social Security but Democrats "attack" everything?

The fucking right wing media is out of control!

[Raiden]

36. It's time to scrap the EC

I once argued with a fellow rural small-stater about the electoral college. He said that if the electoral college was abolished, then small states would be all but forgotten. My reply was that the electoral college ensures that my vote, being that I am a Democrat in a blood red state, will never count. Popular representation would make my voice heard for a change. It's not as if Kentucky is ever actively campaigned in anyway...

The EC is an archaic institution made to ensure that stupid people don't elect the wrong person. In that purpose, it was obviously a failure.

[Freddie Stubbs]

38. If Lofgren were really serious about this issue,

she would have introduced this bill four years ago when issue was on people's minds.

[CHICKEN CAPITOL USA]

39. won't matter anyway--soon there will be no more elections EVER-->

We have to realize, we're ONE "event" away from military totalitarianism--
Think I'm crazy? think again-
One terra event and guess what happens-
All constitutional rights are suspended indefinitely--
RED ALERT-
military state under the guise of "temporary security measures"
Patriot act in place, all opposed can easily be rounded up and hauled away to some of those new "Gitmo" style prisons they built in California (the ones that puzzled neighbors with shiny fresh barb-wire)--

permanent TAX cuts aren't the only thing these freaks want-
They want permanent pResident-
And they will get it-
The opposition is too unorganized and way too spineless.
The fourth Reich is nearly here.

And somehow people will look back and say "no one saw it coming"-
all you have to do is open your eyes-

[struggle4progress]

41. kick

:kick: