Electoral votes

Many people in the U. S. are dissatisfied by our present system of electing a president. They think the electoral college should be abolished and presidents elected by popular vote. Making this change could solve some of the problems we have now but it could also introduce new ones.

If we elected the president by popular vote it is possible that presidential campaigns would focus exclusively densely populated areas and what they want and ignore the needs and desires of the sparsely populated pars of the country. The government should be based on majority rule but we also need to provide safeguards to protect the rights of minorities. One way to do that is to make sure that every citizen, no matter what part of the country he lives in, will have a voice in selecting the president.

And what would happen if the vote was close enough to require a recount? We know how must of a problem it is to recount the votes in a single state. Just imagine what it would be like if that was multiplied fifty times.

Our electoral system should be reformed rather than abolished. I believe that a good way to change it would be to assign one electoral vote to each congressional district and give it to the candidate who receives the majority of the votes in that district. If no candidate receives a majority a runoff election between the two candidates who received the most votes would be required.

The electoral vote would be closer the the popular vote than it is with our present system and if the vote was close enough to require a recount we would only have to count the votes in one district rather than in a whole state or the whole country. (In a state with only one Congressional representative this would also be a statewide recount but the number of votes that needed to be checked would be small.)

This change wouldn’t do anything to eliminate voter fraud but it would limit the amount of harm caused by it. Now it is possible for fraud in one part of a state to change the outcome for the whole state and cause all that states electoral votes to go to a different candidate. Under the new system voter fraud would only affect the electoral vote of one district and would be less likely to change the outcome of the election.

This would not be a perfect system. We won’t have a perfect government until Jesus Christ returns and establishes his kingdom on the earth. But I think it would be better than our present system and also better that electing a president by popular vote.

Redraw the districts to represent a more realistic snapshot of the electorate and then make it extremely difficult to gerrymander and I say we could given it a go in a state or 2 to try it out

Exactly four times since the adoption of the electoral college as a President been elected without winning the popular vote. Out of the four, three occurred in the 1800's. The other being the 200 election, in which Al Gore won the popular vote yet lost the election.

Where do you find fault? Every President in our lifetimes would have been elected outside of that one instance.

I do completely agree that all districts should be redrawn and set in place in a way that ends the constant changes to suit one party or the other.

reply to post by theophilus40

As long as the Democrats get in office for the next 100 years...who cares...it works for us winnners.

Originally posted by theophilus40
Our electoral system should be reformed rather than abolished. I believe that a good way to change it would be to assign one electoral vote to each congressional district and give it to the candidate who receives the majority of the votes in that district. If no candidate receives a majority a runoff election between the two candidates who received the most votes would be required.

Each state is the agent of this change. Most states cater to party politics and this very suggestion I also have made here, with no avail because many here on ATS either do not understand the electoral system we utilize or hold the office of the president as some sacred cow that fixes the world.

Each of us have the ability to affect the change in their state to better suit the political will of the people but they continue to look to the Federal government for those fixes. They do not understand that states, by large, retain their rights on voting. They think we have national elections, when in fact we have individual state elections of national offices.

In many states, because of their tendency to be beholden to party politics, a 'buddy-buddy' system is implemented by said state legislature (that is the body politic that creates the legislation on how electoral seats are selected) to retain party control; Republican or Democrat.

If the People of a state were to actually realize their political power in which they retain, they could indeed implement the very idea you are stating here (one that I agree with) to help push out party politics and create a true representative cross-section of a state's electorate. You would also have to create provisions and restrictions that go further than what Constitution states and what most states allow already. Merely prohibiting current officeholders or officers of the United States from being an elector does not go far enough. Financial ties, dealings, etc should be included to help bring the People into the fray and reduce the nepotism currently enjoyed.

Further, if states would adopt what Maine and Nebraska have already, it would break up the media's love-fest for "swing" states, as each state would be equally important, as intended. Splitting electoral votes, as Nebraska does, they have a "popular" electoral vote and "representative" votes for districts.