Four more years, just ask a Princeton Professor

[falsefashion]

Electoral College Meta-Analysis
From Prof. Sam Wang of Princeton University.

For the record, this Professor is a Democrat and you can see in this report he himself admits to this.
"Although the calculation is unbiased, I am not. I am a Democrat and I donate to key races" ( Read more... )

Comments

[isorion]

Personally, I think the Electoral College is an archaeic and outdated institution, which needs to be dissolved and forgotten.

[falsefashion]

actually if we did that we would be giving way too much power to the people and giving the exectutive branch way too much power. I think the college needs to stay but there needs to be a law that says the electorial votes for each state has to match the popular vote by that state's people.

[isorion]

That might work, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Old white guys hold onto the past with an iron grip.

[falsefashion]

The electoral college is a way to balance power. If we would of left it to congress or the judicial branch then obviously one of those two would end up with an overwhelming amount of power. Congress is debatable the most powerful branch as it is. If we would of left it up to the popular (our votes) alone then that gives the way too much power to the majority and totally destroys the rights of the minority. That's why Congress is set up the way it is. The house is represented by each state's population, so if a state has more of a population, that state gets more representation. Then you have the Senate in which it's an equal representation, each state getting 2 senators, each getting his/her own vote. Now, could you imagine how much power California, New York and Texas would have if Representation was left only on population of the state. States like WV, RI, the Dakotas would have absolutely no power what so ever. So the way congress is set up protects the smaller states (the minority) and prevents the bigger states (the

[subterfugeboy]

    You seem to know your shit. So I'll ask you a question about the electoral college that has always bugged me. The point of the EC is to give a bigger voice to smaller states, right? And the number of votes a state gets in the EC is based on the number of members the state has in Congress, correct? And the number of Congress seats a state has is based on population plus two in the Senate. That means a state, no matter how small, gets at least 3 votes. Is the ratio of population to EC votes the same in all states, then

[falsefashion]

Each state gets the same amount of electoral votes as their congress representation (House of Rep + Senate), that is correct. So for example, West Virginia has 3 house members and 2 senators so we have 5 electoral votes

[subterfugeboy]

    Yes, well, with the quota (I acutally think it is 272, but I'm not sure either) the EC makes a bit more sense. But what is wrong with just adding a quota to the popular vote? Not a number, mind you, but an over all percentage. There are about 500 EC votes, right? More or less. So if Kerry needs 270 out of 500 then why not say Kerry just needs 51% of the popular vote instead? Even if he gets Texas, Cali, and NY, he'd still have to find millions and millions more voters.

[falsefashion]

actually if you take those 3 states populations, i think it is over 50% of america's population.

You would again be doing the same thing while totally destorying minority interests. I don't mean minority as in race minority, but as in those smaller states. If they went by popular vote alone, why would they bother with WV or RI or North and South Dakota. Therefor those states are made even weaker than they already are. The electorial college provides that popular vote idea, but protecting the minority interests by preventing majority rule.

[subterfugeboy]

    So you are saying that, by popular vote, no one would bother campaigning in Rhode Island or West Virginia because our piddly million or so votes wouldn't matter, right? I disagree

[falsefashion]

ok I was wrong about the 3 states being 50% of the US population it's a little over 26% or 27%. But none-the-less that's 3 states being a fourth of the population

[subterfugeboy]

    When I said "fuck the states" I meant that the states, in a national election for president, shouldn't be a factor. It shouldn't matter if I'm from a big state or a small state. My vote should count the same

[falsefashion]

are you going to once again ignore the fact it's giving the people and the executive branch too much power?

You're also basing your view on what is happening. We don't know what will happen. If those 3 states all voted for one candidate ... fuck, that's it, half of the country is useless now. This protects the smaller states. And by what you're saying we should do, we will be weakening the states so much that the national government will be a few processes away from a communist nation.

[subterfugeboy]

    Yeah, that was my bad. I was going to mention that in the last comment but forgot. Sorry

[falsefashion]

A direct election of the people is an obvious direction of majority rule. When this process was written in the 1800s obviously the population was not close to what it is today. So the majority rule was a much bigger factor then than it is now. They could NOT have got away with not having an electoral college then without having 2 or 3 states (Virginia mostly, the first 5 presidents came from that state) deciding the president. The south was in an obvious disadvantage because they were mostly farmers, so the population wasn't nearly as big

[falsefashion]

Our forefathers were geniuses. Actually they just had enough knowledge to take the best idea from Locke, Hobbs and Mills. If you read anything but those three philosophers you would end up piecing together our government. It's pretty wild ... John Locke was a genius.

[subterfugeboy]

    I'm going to have to disagree with you on Locke. Oh, sure, he makes you think, but his fundamental premise is flawed. Locke believed that before government that man was a peaceful, loving, tolerating creature. He believes that people are born Good and it is society's fault for all the bad things. Ole Tommy Hobbes had it right, I think, in his theory that before government mankind was an "every man for himself" type of creature that made war and killed. Government is a way to civilize people and raise them up.
    That's my point of view, anyway.
    Plus, Locke was for religious tolerance for all religions except atheism and Catholicism. So he'd probably lock me us as a threat to society.