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MESSAGE BOARD Is it time to get rid of the Electoral College?
In "Peculiar institution," Alexander Keyssar describes the nearly successful effort to get rid of the Electoral College in 1969-70 and suggests that its survival may owe more to the legacy of slavery, and the political power of the South, than to efforts by small states to preserve any mathematical advantage. After the experience of the 2000 election, and the prospect of a repeat this November, has the time finally come to abolish the Electoral College? Who stands to gain? Who to lose?
Page 2 Get rid of the Electoral college. Then the big metropolitan areas will have appropriate representation...and the rural areas will stop imposing their will on the majority. Allan, Brighton Absolutely!!! Get rid of the stinking thing! A preponderance of voters in either party in one place negates the votes of everyone else, which is ridiculous, as is the stupidity of electing someone who clearly has less than a simple majority of votes. Joe B., Norfolk Interesting that the president which so ardently propones the spread the democracy through seemingly any mean - even war - was elected through a system so convincingly undemocratic as the electoral college. Anonymous, Belmont Particularly aimed at Ed's belief that as long as the electoral college provides "proportional representation" of the electorate, it should remain. Proportional representation is exactly what the electoral college doesn't provide, hence your beef that republican votes in MA won't matter. On account of the electoral college, even if the state turned in a 50.1%/49.9% of the vote, all of Massachusett's electoral college voting power goes to the winning party (usually the Dems). In a direct election, Republican voters will at least have the feeling that their votes do matter in the final results. I don't entirely understand how the electoral college real gives any real import to smaller states, the other key defense to the electoral college. Electoral votes are still based on population of states, so CA, NY, TX etc. all matter a big deal. You just don't see much attention to them because, due to the nature of the electoral college, polling results have those states "decided" hence no real campaign investment in them. What we see now are a few "battleground" states, that are being heavily worked because rather than simply trying to establish a plurality of voter sympathy among the nation, the presidential election has become more a game of chess like geographic calculation of red/blue states. Midnight Platypus, Alphaville Let's face it: Red America hates Massachusetts. Therefore, any change that will give us more power - more impact because of our higher population - is good for us. We need to defend ourselves against the Reds, who openly insult and scorn our state and our people. Pam, Weymouth It is absolutely time, in fact it is long overdue, to get rid of the electoral college? What purpose does it serve but to disenfranchise huge swaths of the electorate. This year, most voters in California, Texas, New York, Montana, and Massachusetts will draw the reasonable conclusion that their vote is meaningless. Meanwhile, voters in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida wield an inordinate amount of power over this country's future. Why is there no outrage about this undemocratic vestige of the aristocratic past? Is our lip service to representative government just a sham? I am a history teacher - what do I tell my students in defense of the process? Mark, Cambridge For anyone who thinks we should get rid of the electoral college to closer approach a democracy, read your history book. We are a republic, not a true democracy. For anyone who says that the founding fathers wanted the President to be elected by the people, read a history book. The President is elected by the states, not the individual citizens of each state. If you propose that technology has advanced to the point where we don't need the electoral college, you might as well propose that we don't "need" states since we could feasibly control the whole country with the infrastructure in Washington. We are the United States of America, with an emphasis on States. We all live in part of a whole nation, and each part gets to decide the President, not each resident. Matthew, Cambridge It should go. Something no one has mentioned yet needs to be considered. If a state has the popular/majority vote for one candidate, the college does not neccessarily have to vote for that candidate. Example, if Kerry won the popular vote in West Virginia, the some members or even all of the members of the electoral college there could still place their votes for Bush. Deborha, Malden The electoral college must go. It is undemocratic. It give too much power to too few people and makes it to easy to corrupt an election, as in 2000. Let's make every vote count and get rid of this archaic system! Ron , Brookline absolutely rob , jp
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