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| quote: | Originally posted by occrider
Unfortunately a popular vote would not be in the best interests of the country with the way it is set up. Remember we are a federalist union of states rather than one large single body of power. At the federal level, we are NOT a democracy, in order to avoid a tyranny of the majority, a republic was adopted. At the state level, we have 50 democracies with individual powers. As such, there are clear lines of distinction as to what powers are given to the state and what powers are given to the federal government. In certain areas, federal powers cannot overrun state laws ... the reason why you see marijuana being decriminalized in several states despite the federal government being opposed it. The way our government is set up, is that a big centralized government is bad, whereas smaller local governments within each state would be more apt to fulfill the needs of its citizens. Which would you rather have, washington dictating your lifestyle according to the needs of what people in the 49 others states want, or what you and the people in your state alone want? The idea is to limit the authority the federal government has over you and over the states ... checks and balances.
That being said, each state is given electoral votes whose determination is determined by a popular votes of the states. Some smaller states are given a set number of electoral votes to give them a fair share in the determination of the leader of the union of states ... otherwise those states wouldn't have even opted to joint the union to begin with. If the nation were to cater to a popular vote, than that immediately disrupts the representation of all smaller states. All the power would immediately shift to the large population states ... namely California. In such a consolidation of power, what obligation would a presidential candidate have to fulfill the needs of ALL states (what the founding fathers intended) as opposed to the most populous states? Why not simply cater to the needs of California, Texas, the Northeast, and simply forget everyone else? In order to appease those states, attention will be given to the majority and since their needs are being met, they would continually draw from the populations of surrounding states whose needs are not being met.
I'm actually for the electoral college since I'm a proponent of state rights, and smaller federal government. The fact of the matter is, is that a study of the electoral processes was conducted by a team of about 40 political scientists who could not reach a concensus on a better alternative.
http://www.ur.ku.edu/News/02N/FebNews/Feb14/elect.html
However, that doesn't mean that I don't think that there could be changes made to the electoral college. For one, I would advocate proportional allocation of electoral votes. Rather than the popular vote of the state capturing ALL the state's electoral vote it should get a proportional majority of the electoral votes.
If you are a strong advocate of the popular vote, than you MUST be outraged at how in the 1960 election, Kennedy won through a clear majority of electoral votes (his 303 to Nixon's 219), while according to the popular vote Kennedy had received 49.7% as opposed to Nixon's 49.5%. Recount?
At any rate, I would have been all for a Florida recount IF a recount had been done in ALL states/counties where votes had been hotly contested, not just the 3 democrat counties in Florida ... sorry but that just doesn't cut the zionist mustard.  |
- I understand that representation in washington from every state according to its population, so it can be represented fairly. Well, I just dont understand why would it affect everything you said, if for the presidential elections popular vote chooses the president, and for the checks and balances, use the electoral vote.. if you know what I mean, choosing a president compared to choosing representatives is different to me. Everything can stay the same, the only thing to differ would be the amount of people! ..
As for the recount in Florida, I totally agree with you, when a president wins by such a small margin, there should be a recount.. as majority ddid not choose. As of the Kennedy and Nixon, well, Kennedy still won the popular vote by a slim percent.. in that instance, a recount would have been necessary..
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