("Time to End the Electoral College")
Historical perspective matters not. Present reality dictates and Republicans, who control state and federal government are as likely to move this country away from the electoral college as Mr. Trump is to stop tweeting.
Historical perspective matters not. Present reality dictates and Republicans, who control state and federal government are as likely to move this country away from the electoral college as Mr. Trump is to stop tweeting.
It is a waste of time and resource to contemplate a universe that will never exist in the current environment. The electoral college is the best hope the Republicans have to remain in control of the presidency in a country whose demographics is shifting decidedly blue.
Gerrymandering, undocumented allegations of voter fraud, "fictional truths", are but tools of the trade. The mother lode is the electoral college and protecting its future is critical to the future of Republican control of the Oval Office.
It is time to wake up and start dealing with issues that can be challenged and impacted not one that cannot.
5 comments:
Unfortunately correct. PB
It would take 38 states to ratify a constitutional amendment to abolish the electoral college and replace it with the popular vote. The REAL reality is simply no matter which party is in ascendance or decline, or in control, or whatever the demographics are, or any other non-sensical excuses, the smaller states will never cede control of presidential elections to California, NY, Florida, Texas, Illinois, etc. California alone has a larger population than the 21 least populous states combined. THAT'S THE REAL REASON THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE IS HERE TO STAY. But every 4 years we'll have this same ludicrous conversation about the popular vote.
Quite honestly, it is a ludicrous conversation whenever your party is on the wrong end of it. The simple truth is that the electoral college is inherently contradictory to the concept of one person one vote. When one considers that popular vote winners are practically pre-ordained in a vast majority of the States it does seem that very few of the votes cast will have an impact on the outcome of the election.
If this was the intent of the original framers of the Constitution, it was ill conceived. If it was not their intent, then logic would dictate its correction.
But, as we know all too well, logic, fairness and other similar concepts have all but been abandoned in the present atmosphere. And so what remains is a form of election that does not provide for the necessity of a representative head of state.
Keeping the discussion in its historical context, the first priority of the Founding Fathers was to create a Union of 13 States, some large and some small, each jealously guarding their own rights and powers while suspicious of an all powerful central government. The choice of an Electoral College to elect a president was a grand compromise. The question is would there be a United States of America without this compromise? Most likely there would not have been. While the Electoral College may have outlived it's original purpose it still remains a herculean effort to replace it. We have a most imperfect union, which you so correctly describe above.
As pointed out in a previous comment, the framers of the Constitution knew full well that for the States to remain "United" there would have to be guarantees that each state could have a say. As Tip O'Neil said: "all politics is local". States today still want to "do it their way" by evaluating the promises a candidate makes and how it would affect that particular state. I'm not sure there is anything wrong with this. For this reason, I think the Electoral College is still the best compromise. If a candidate wins the majority of popular votes but loses the election, it means that certain states saw that candidate's plans as not in alignment with their own. It is up to the candidate to win locally at the state by state level. Our interests from state to state are just to diverse to rely on a popular vote.
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