Shopsmith Forums

Just wanted too run some presidential election thoughts past you all. I'm thinking the Electoral College has outlived it's usefulness. The way things are today, voters from states with large populations choose the president. Small states? Forget about it.

The popular vote was split 51% to 49% between the candidates. That's a real squeaker I'd say. But the Electoral College indicates some sort of faux landslide.

A Republican from Minnesota, his vote didn't count for president. A Democrat from Arkansas, her vote for president had no influence on the outcome.

America was a more rural, agricultural country in the beginning. The electoral college helped to decentralize political power and spread it around. This mitigated the slight advantage urban voters had over rural back then. Over the decades the population has become much more concentrated in a few areas, and those areas control the election of our president.

Is it time to ditch the Electoral College and make the election for president truly a one person - one vote contest?

I have never seen a real advantage to the Electoral College and I agree that using it provides what I believe to be an undue advantage in the hands of a few.

Some people scream and tell for equality. When it comes to a presidential vote, the voice of a sheep herder in Montana should be as loud as that of a corporate lawyer or executive on Wall Street.

However, when I listen to people on the street talk about political affairs and what is important to them, it does make me wonder a little.

Actually, the idea of the electoral college is that small states DO have an influence on the outcome of the presidential election, whereas the popular vote would favor large states. A bit over 50 percent of the population lives in just nine of the 50 states -- California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Georgia -- so you can see that just a few states could easily determine the president.

California alone has 11.91 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty-one of the least populous states don't match that of California. If you add up the population of Wyoming (the least populous state), Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Iowa, you come up with just 11.14 percent of the U.S. population.

The idea of the electoral college (and the Senate) is that large states don't dominate federal politics.

Sadly the current Electoral College system is all out of whack with modern demographics. The race for president was very close (51%-49%), not the lopsided manipulation (60%-40%) given us by the antiquated Electoral College. I say every man and every woman's vote should count the same, not some watered down political rig that skews the outcome to the desires of large urban populations.

Every state has the option of selecting its electors any way it wants. Although most have an "all or nothing" system, a couple assign electors based upon each congressional district. I personally would would prefer the latter. In theory, a state doesn't have to have a general election at all and the state legislature could select the electors. This was probably the original intent of the constituion. Our founding fathers didn't turst the people to make a decision as important as selecting the president (recently I am in agreement)

In addition to pennview's comments... Getting rid of the electoral collage would put the final nail in the coffin of "state's rights" and would centralize all power to the federal government.

Remember, we are not a democracy, but a republic. The idea of the electoral college was that the STATES elect the President. The people elect local and state governments. The Federal government was never supposed to have so much direct power over the people. It's not that the founding fathers didn't trust the people to elect the President. It's that the President wasn't supposed to preside over the people, but over the states. The idea was to disperse the power among the states, not centralize power in the Federal government.

If we get rid of the electoral college, we not only get rid of states rights, but we give the populated metropolitan areas power over everyone. And candidate would only have to campaign and appeal to people in Los Angelas, San Francisco, Dallas, Miami, and New York City and could forget about the rest of the country.

Getting rid of the electoral college would be as big of a mistake as the 17th Amendment. That established direct election of Senators. Previously, the House Of Representatives were the "people's" representation at the Federal level and the Senate was the "state's" representation. The people elected their representatives, and the states named their senators in whatever manner they chose (typically appointment by state legislatures). The 17th Amendment did away with state representation. Following that, it has been very difficult to stop the centralizing of power in the Federal government. Getting rid of the electoral college would make it even harder.

Well said, Heath ! The intelligence of Shopsmith owners never ceases to amaze me.

I wish to agree with pennview and say his post is very well worded. Thanks for showing the possible extreme examples if the present system didn't exist.

I can add the fact that the number of delegates to the electoral college is equal to the number of Representatives each state has in the U.S. House of Representatives. Therefore each vote is equally represented in the Electoral College.

pennview wrote:Actually, the idea of the electoral college is that small states DO have an influence on the outcome of the presidential election, whereas the popular vote would favor large states. A bit over 50 percent of the population lives in just nine of the 50 states -- California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Georgia -- so you can see that just a few states could easily determine the president.

California alone has 11.91 percent of the U.S. population. Twenty-one of the least populous states don't match that of California. If you add up the population of Wyoming (the least populous state), Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, South Dakota, Delaware, Montana, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Kansas, Arkansas, Mississippi and Iowa, you come up with just 11.14 percent of the U.S. population.

The idea of the electoral college (and the Senate) is that large states don't dominate federal politics.

If the electoral college is to be kept IMHO all states should follow the example of a few states that proportion their electoral college votes in direct proportion to the popular vote in their state instead of all votes going to the winner of the state. By doing this if a state had 22 electoral college votes (made up figure) and the popular vote went 50.1% for candidate A and 48.2% for candidate B and the rest for other "minor" candidates it would be 11.02 votes for A, 10.6 for B and the rest divided among the remaining. This would still make popular vote important without diminishing the original logic for the college.

If you want to see some AMAZING pictures, look for a county by county picture of the red-blue breakdown, of the 2012 elections.

It's like 80% red, and only 20% blue.

Now, look for the state capitals, and institutes of higher learning. You see ALL of them in blue. Wonder why?

If you want even more of a scare, look for pockets of communism, and superimpose that picture of the county picture. "OMG!!" the communists are ALL voting Democrat!

Cleon was right!

steve