RE: Defend the Ellectoral College!!
October 24, 2012 at 6:46 pm
(This post was last modified: October 25, 2012 at 8:24 am by Tiberius.)
Look, the electoral college isn't the worst system in the world, but it clearly isn't the best. Off the top of my head, here are a number of known flaws:
1) The candidate with the largest percentage of votes in a single state gets all the electoral college votes of that state. Between two candidates, this seems fair(ish), but between any others, and you could get a scenario where someone wins a state with less than 50% of the vote.
2) Smaller states have more electoral college votes per person than larger states, because all states start off with 3 electoral college votes, regardless of their population. Further electoral college votes are distributed according to the relative population of the state. Unfortunately, some states shouldn't get 3 electoral college votes in the first place, which means they effectively steal them from the larger states. California has 10 fewer electoral college votes than it should have according to its population. This means that the votes of people in smaller states are worth more than the votes of people in larger states, which is completely unfair in a democracy.
3) Due to it being winner-take all, it doesn't matter how much you win a state by...just that you win it. This means that candidates will ignore states where they poll well, and (conversely) states where they poll poorly. Instead, they will focus on a very small subset of swing states which they have more of a chance of winning. Unfortunately, this also affects voter turnout, since Democrat voters in a strong Republican state will see their vote as a waste of time, and vice versa.
4) You can win the Presidency with only 22% of the popular vote. You complain that popular vote isn't everything, but can you really defend a system where this can happen?
In short, I'm not against the electoral college because George Bush won without the popular vote; I'm against it because it is clearly an unfair system (for many other reasons).
1) The candidate with the largest percentage of votes in a single state gets all the electoral college votes of that state. Between two candidates, this seems fair(ish), but between any others, and you could get a scenario where someone wins a state with less than 50% of the vote.
2) Smaller states have more electoral college votes per person than larger states, because all states start off with 3 electoral college votes, regardless of their population. Further electoral college votes are distributed according to the relative population of the state. Unfortunately, some states shouldn't get 3 electoral college votes in the first place, which means they effectively steal them from the larger states. California has 10 fewer electoral college votes than it should have according to its population. This means that the votes of people in smaller states are worth more than the votes of people in larger states, which is completely unfair in a democracy.
3) Due to it being winner-take all, it doesn't matter how much you win a state by...just that you win it. This means that candidates will ignore states where they poll well, and (conversely) states where they poll poorly. Instead, they will focus on a very small subset of swing states which they have more of a chance of winning. Unfortunately, this also affects voter turnout, since Democrat voters in a strong Republican state will see their vote as a waste of time, and vice versa.
4) You can win the Presidency with only 22% of the popular vote. You complain that popular vote isn't everything, but can you really defend a system where this can happen?
In short, I'm not against the electoral college because George Bush won without the popular vote; I'm against it because it is clearly an unfair system (for many other reasons).
