|
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 9 A less radical tweek to the electorial college system would be the apportionment of each states votes. The emphasis on "one person one vote" ignores the fact that we have a compromise system of government. Just look at the House and Senate which are attempts to ballance the interests of small and large states. This is the "United States of America" and like it or not a lot of our government is still at the state level. The executive office has to be shared among the interests of big and small states. The biggest problem in this sharing, "swing states" could be aleviated with vote apportionment. Peter, Clinton One should remember, we do not live in a Democracy we live in a Federal Republic and the Electoral College is a reflection of that fact! Maybe one should read the US Constitution a bit more than just the Bill of Rights! Eric, Boston I think the we need the Electorial College and it should continue to be up to the states on how to allocate their electors. One of the things that helps this country funtion well is that we have states with real power. Eliminating the Electorial College would diminish the power of the states and this would not be a good thing. Don, Melrose The Electoral College is not the problem, it is the winner-take-all system used to award the votes that is flawed. States should adopt either the Congressional District Model or the Proportional Model. CDM awards 1 EC vote for each Congressional District won by a candidate. The overall winner of the popular vote in that state then gets the 2 Senate votes as well. In the proportional model, the EC votes are awarded based on percentage of vote received. Either way is better than the current situation of winning 54 EC votes in California if you only win the state by 1 vote. Tim, Methuen, MA Yes, it's time to abolish the Electoral College. Who stands to gain or lose is an irrelevant issue. Equality of voters seems to me to be the relevant issue. The acronym, KISS ("Keep it simple, stupid") also comes to mind. Susan, Mansfield The electoral college was specifically designed to make sure that Presidential candidates had to address the concerns of a large cross-section of Americans and not focus on just a few, very populated areas. That was the original purpose of the Electoral College and it still performs that purpose brilliantly today. Liberal media outlets, like the Globe, don't want voters to know that is its purpose. They purposefully try to confuse voters into thinking that the 2000 election was "stolen" because the Republican winner did not win the popular vote count. Of course the United States has never had a system in place to elect the President based on the popular vote. The Globe absolutely understands that - they just hope that the average voter does not. In fact, George Bush was not the first President to win the Presidency without winning the popular vote - he was the fourth. When the Globe asks the question "Is it time to get rid of the Electoral College" it is simply part of a long term plan to get voters to view it as some antiquated, broken mechanism that needs to be "fixed" by electing President's based on a popular vote. That way a few, populous liberal strongholds on either side of the Country (i.e. NYC, Boston, and the State of California) will be able to largely determine the direction of the Country (effectively leaving the "heartland" of America with little to no influence on national politics). It is PRECISELY for this reason that our nation's founders went to the effort to develop the Electoral College and why it should NEVER be abolished. Bill, Bedford More then time. My impression with many people my age (28) and as growing up was that your vote didn;t matter because the winner of a state got all of the electoral votes for that state. Therefor, one additional vote for any canidate did not matter. But as we have seen in the last election, the popular vote can be telling in terms of how the people feel, and yet we can have someone else elected. There is also the issue of the electoral voters themselves and the people who giv them there instructions. I remeber the stories that came out of Florida last election and one of them was about how the Senate/House of Florida had stated that no matter how the popular vote turned out they were going to instruct the Electors to vote for Bush. If this is true, then one persons vote truly doesn't matter. We need to enfranchise people back into our voting system and the only way to do this is to get rid of the Elector college system. Lang, Athol What should be immediately abolished in all 50 states is the "winner take all" element of the electoral college. The Igloomaster, Boston, MA Where does anything anywhere say that the election of federal officers should be democratic? The USA is a Federal Republic comprised of sovereign states. The founding fathers, right or wrong, decided that the states should decide the executive. If people were informed and voted instead of complaining, every vote would matter, pundits would be confounded and politicians might actually act in our best interests rather their their own. Patrick, Medfield No. The founding fathers understood that the ignorant unwashed masses couldn't elect a preseident themselves. Homer, Hudson
|
Read the story: 
