Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnnyD
Hopefully it'll be close enough that we can discuss getting rid of the Electoral College. Then, we can finally have a time in this country where every person's vote actually counts.
I can see how it may have been necessary 225 years ago, but it's completely nonsense today. At least Maine and Nebraska have it partially corrected.
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Every person's vote counts more with the electoral college than it would with a direct national vote--that is, if you believe in federalism. Your vote is far more effective at a state level than it would be at a national level. The smaller the number of total votes, the greater the weight of each vote. The Founders understood the dangers of a pure democracy. Their intention was optimal individual freedom. One of their greatest fears was the tyranny of the majority over the minority. That's why they vested most of the power in the States and the People. That's why they instituted a republic rather than a Democracy.
Federalism allows a great number of diverse localities each of which has a consensus by vote. The electoral college gives the consensus of each State the proportional power of votes, and thus commands the candidates to appeal to a wider variety of needs and wishes. The ability of those elected to the central government is restrained more by this electoral power of States rather than by politicians being able to appeal directly to each voter not on the basis of what is the wish of his community, but what is most profitable to him individually, thus more easily winning power by the old method of divide and conquer. Corruption and control is more possible when you can win by appealing directly to individual greed and skirting various community values and local powers. The consensus power of the States holds federal power in check, and prevents it from implementing that majoritarian power over individuals.
So much has already been done to erode Constitutional governance by transferring State and individual power to the central goverment that there is not much more that needs to be done to totally transform us into a society with a totally top down form of government which becomes the sovereign and we its underlings. The power of the States has been diminished to the status of vassals to a central directorate. The lion's share of taxes imposed on the citizens of the States goes to the Federal Government, leaving the States a comparatively meager share on which to operate. The Senate, which used to be appointed by the States, is by amendment elected directly, which often makes them representatives of the Federal Government through party affiliation more than representatives of the States except to be emissaries who beg for money from the central leviathan as a reward for doing its bidding. As the Federal government expands its unelected regulatory power, the need for States and local government becomes less necessary, and the Constitution no longer is able through this so-called progressive transformation to check that trajectory. If the electoral college is abolished, and the Federal government is directly elected by the people, and this central government has its now unlimited ability to tax and spend, and it has the power to create, without popular votes, especially without the diverse wishes of various States, any number of regulatory agencies that promulgate thousands of pages of regulations by which it administers the country, what is the need for States?
Curtis Gans, the director of the non-partisan Center for the Study of the American Electorate, commenting on the Electoral College wrote "The Electoral College stands as a bulwark for pluralism, federalism, coalition building and participation. It stands as a deterrant to unbridled majoritarianism, total dominance of the news media and money, and the nightmare of a national recount. Its ground rules need to be amended, but the essential institution should not be discarded."
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