Korean Job Discussion Forums

[asylum seeker]

State-by-state elections make sense when electing the congress and senate because there is the need to have someone representing your particular area but for the presidential election why doesn't the US have a straight out popular vote? It seems that under the current system someone's vote can be worth more or less than someone else's depending on where they live.
Wouldn't a popular vote be the best way to level the playing field and make everybody's votes count equally?

[Ya-ta Boy]

Because the Founding Fathers believed democracy was a dangerous system and constructed a republic with an indirect method of electing the chief executive.

[Kuros]

A better way would be to amend the Electoral College to give a handful of votes, about a dozen, to the winner of the popular vote.

[Jandar]

Because that's the way it's been for 233 years, would be the simple answer.

The more complex answer is that the founding fathers wanted to soften the effect of factionalism, and avoid the major threat of tyranny by majority.

For tyranny of the majority see the French revolution, for factionalism see Nazi Germany (these examples may be simplistic maybe someone else has a better example).

A more eloquent argument can be found in Hamilton's defense of the Electoral College, published as the Federalist Papers Number 68.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._68

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed68.asp

http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed68.htm

Amazing what a little reading can do.

Oh by the way for an understanding of the workings of the Electoral College you can find that here:

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

See Article 2. Also the 12th Amendment, 20th Amendment Section 3.

For further reading on defense and criticism of the electoral college see:

http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_procon.php

For more on this subject check the notes you forgot to take in your 8th grade Civics class.

[asylum seeker]

[ontheway]

No President has actually ever been elected when losing the "popular vote" because no such vote has ever occurred.

Since electoral votes are determined by state, there is no need for a candidate or party to run up the vote in states where victory (or defeat) is assured.

Therefore, in those areas, the voter turnout is supressed for both major candidates and there is no way of knowing what the vote would have been if there had been an election based on the "popular vote."

So, the argument that someone "won" the popular vote but lost the election is silly at best. The candidates play by the rules and vie for Electoral Votes.

No one knows what the "popular vote" was or would have been. Any claims to the contrary are either propaganda, lies, or simplistic nonsense.

[NAVFC]

[Ya-ta Boy]

In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the popular vote and lost the election to John Quincey Adams; in 1876 Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote and lost to Rutherford B. Hayes; in 1888 Grover Cleveland won the popular vote and lost to Benjamin Harrison; in 2000 Al Gore won the popular vote and lost to George W. Bush.

[seosan08]

I swear, the election sounds like nothing but a popularity contest!

[nate2008]

[asylum seeker]

[ontheway]

[Ya-ta Boy]

If we had mandatory voting, something tells me you'd be complaining about the heavy hand of government...

[ontheway]

[Milwaukiedave]