Some comments on Robin D. Laws’ livejournal have started fuzzing up my brain.
The US has an electoral college system, wherein each state can cast a certain number of votes in the Presidential election, from 3 to 20-something (I think). However, each state is run as a mini-election – and in almost all states, the winner in the state election gets all the state’s votes in the overall election. That is, it isn’t proportional. If a state has 10 votes, and candidate A wins the election 51% to 49%, all 10 votes go to candidate A.
Now this seems absurd and archaic to me.
However, LJ user jbru then said:
“The electoral college, however, is a mechanism by which the individual voter has a greater say in the outcome of the election. See http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm”
Now I’m not sure. Its one of those things where I think I understand the nuances – but I’m not 100% sure I do. Is it in fact the case that when I vote, I want the outcome to be determined by the majority of my fellow voters? Or do I want a system that makes each individual vote more powerful (i.e. more likely to swing an election)?
If anyone’s still reading you’re clearly interested in either logic puzzles or politics or both. So go read the links, both of them. If you’re feeling really motivated you can check the logic of my posts there…
9 thoughts on “Electoral College Hurts My Brain”
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Actually, I think proportional representation does provide some sort of answer to the problem: “Without some way to counter the will of the majority, politicians would have no reason to make any concessions to the minority.” For example, in NZ, since we changed the system, the major political parties have not had an outright majority and therefore have had to make political concessions to minor parties to form a government… I think maybe this gives individuals more power to affect politics wrt the issues they care most about… admittedly, we are voting for a whole parliament not an individual… but I guess even in the U.S. presidential election some form of PR would force candidates to take into account minorities in each state when making decisions on policy. Aaargh, I don’t know… am I really defending the NZ poltical system?… all the politicians will be 1st against the wall when the revolution comes, comrade(-:
P.S. I cried (yeah literally, I’m a bit hormonal at the mo) in the bit in Farenheit 9/11 where all the black members of congress were standing up and objecting to the presidential inauguration and not a single senator had the moral fibre to support their objections… it must be soul-destroying to be elected to represent people who have no democratic rights.
I once had the electoral college system explained to me (I was in the States in tiems for Clintons forst election).
As I understood it, the electoral college was set up a century and a half ago for quite good reasosn. Namely that a literate man would cast votes for the illiterate population in his area. He would talk to the people, find out what was importannt and then cast their votes for them.
This is almost certainly an oversimplification, but that’s the basic idea.
Here was the thing that shocked me *and it’s still true today*. The holder of the elctoral college has not obligation to vote as the people have asked them too. In fact they could cast their votes in an entirely different direction.
In practice this happens rarely, but it has (apparently) happned in the last 40 odd years.
So it’s not that candidate A gets 51% and B gets 49% so candidate A gets all 10 votes. In principle candidate B could get all 10 votes *even though they lost*.
So not only is it not proportional (and it’s not, electoral colleges seems to be put in lumps, so Morgue is right, candidate A would get all 10 votes [in most cases]) but it can actually (and very rarely does) go *against* the will of the people.
I haven’t read your links morgue but I fail to see how this increases a persons ability to have their voice heard unless they are rich enough, and the elctoral college seat holder is corrupt enough, to buy a vote. Apparently there is pretty good auditing of these positions, so bribery is unlikely, but who can say it doesn’t happen?
I shudder at it. It’s the worst form of democracy I can think of – if you can even call it democracy (more like a republic in the classic greek sense where the privaledged few get thier say – with some token gestures towards real democracy).
“Absurd and archaic” is the appropriate description. It’s due to the writers of the US Constitution distrusting the People – that’s the only reason they use indirect election via a group of “wiser heads”.
The FPP aspect is entirely due to the states – however, because of the way the US electoral system works, splitting the electoral college votes dilutes their relative power, and therefore their share of pork. So voters are stuck with a system which doubly disenfranchises them. Unfortunately, they can’t really move to direct election, because the federal government is technically a government of the states, not of the people.
I read you debate with jbru and I am inclined not to agree with him. The comments made by others (no I couldn’t be bothered reading the article) really seemed to spell it out. He seemed to be, generally, entrenched and more willing to reinterpret whatever people said as agreeing with him and not really saying much else. Not heinously so, but that’s how it came across to me.
Also Idiot has a point about the federal government governing states not people. It’s easy to forget, but when you look into the convoluted heart of the american political system it’s not hard to see why they constantly elect such loosers.
The whole system is out of whack and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up to meet with the times. And like *that* is every going to happen.
Hey
This voting system didn’t originate in Florida did it?
I was just passing by to check out the blogroll we inherited from the rafahkid website. You will see that your website had considerable influence on what we grudgingly call our ‘site logo’
It was the best we could think of at the time.
Anyway we will be keeping you on the Blogroll to give people something different to Rafah to chew on. As rafah kid radio is now tuned out it would be great if you could link to us for all things Rafah.
We also want to feature your Travel Stuff writings even though they are not rafah related.
Hope that’s ok
el-Rache!
thats awesome im so going here please write back
The American electoral college is in place because America is not a democracy as so may people for whatever reason seem to think so. We are a Republic. a democratic voting system is really a “mob rule” system and cannot protect the will of the people, in particular..minorities. Like previously mentioned, America votes for the individual states, so State with high population densities do not take away our form of governing in our individual states. I do not want Massachusets or california telling us farmers in South Dakota how to live our lives. The electoral college is actually a genius form of election.
soos, leaving aside your confusion over the meaning of ‘democracy’, I remain unconvinced of the value of a districting system.
I am convinced that the districting system in the US (the electoral college) is a troublesome anachronism that delivers an enormous cost in legitimacy and validity for relatively meagre philosophical returns.
The electoral college is a stupid system. At the very least it should be reconfigured into proportional voting.
Things have changed since the founding of the US. There is an absolute ethical requirement that the election of the US President be as directly representative of the people’s will as possible.
Safeguarding the rights of states is not the role of the Presidential election. There are other channels. Compromising the legitimacy and validity of the Presidential election for this reason is inexcusable.