In a small piece entitled: "The US is a republic not a democracy" Brady Cuthbert argues the virtues of the Electoral College in the US. I would agree with him 100%, except one small detail: the Electoral College does not work as envisioned by our Founding Fathers any more. I would be more than happy to elect someone I trust, who can spend time and energy studying and investigating the presidential candidates, and making the best decision. But that not the case anymore. No one knows, or cares, who are the electors. People cast their votes for a particular candidate, or particular party, and the party makes sure the "electors" elect the party's candidate. The end of the story. It is very unfortunate, as most people that are voting nowadays really shouldn't. They have no clue what are the proposed policies of the candidates nor how would they affect the country. Most are voting either because they like the candidate's hairdo, their populists slogans, or just because they belong to a particular party. And any of these criteria are not really good.
If it was possible to go back to the original Electoral College idea, I would, in a blink of an eye. But it is not. As it is right now, it brings more harm than good (as I argue here), and therefore should be abolished. Before the elections, preferably.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Re: Electoral College in Republic
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4 comments:
While you are correct that people today have very little understanding of the political process (not to mention a multitude other subjects), abolishing the Electoral College will do nothing to alleviate the above mentioned problems. In fact, it lends even more credence to why we need an Electoral College. If you believe people "really shouldn't" vote because they are inclined to partake in "voting either because they like the candidate's hairdo, their populists slogans, or just because they belong to a particular party" then you certainly would not want to replace the Electoral College with a democracy (which I have to assume you are proposing). It is suicidal to place unchecked political power into the hands of the populace, especially one that has “no clue” about political policies and the impact these policies can have on the country.
Your argument does not cite any shortcomings with the Electoral College; instead it reinforces why we need an Electoral College: to protect our inalienable rights from an ignorant populace, and to ensure that no single faction can elect a president (thus, many politically diverse states, from various regions, must be won in order to be elected).
Brady Cuthbert
The-Voice-of-Reason.com
I am sorry I did not explain myself better. Let me try again.
The three presidential election methods we are discussing are:
(1)Electoral College as originally envisioned
(2)Direct elections ("democracy")
(3)Electoral College as it exists right now.
I have listed them in the order of my preference. For me, the ideal situation would be for people to pick their local (local being extremely important) trusted representatives who can take time and energy to investigate the candidates and make reasoned decision about the choice of the president. (Also, here comes the argument about the easily mislead populace...) Alas, moving to that situation is not going to happen. Can anyone imagine what would happen if someone tries to "take away people's right to vote," as some populist or other would undoubtedly cast the return to the proper Electoral College?
Thus we are left with the choice between the direct elections and the situation we are right now. And it is this choice that is the subject of my earlier post Abolish Electoral College and this article. The basic reason for my contention that the Electoral College should be discarded is that for all outward appearances the modern presidential election is a democratic process but, due to electoral "accounting tricks," we have situations like person who lost the popular vote becoming a president, or disenfranchising whole segments of population (to trivialize, such as anybody not in Ohio or Florida). That is, the current situation has all the drawbacks of the direct elections, plus the mess created by the leftover Electoral College. If we cannot bring the original back, let's do away with the leftovers.
“Alas, moving to that situation is not going to happen. Can anyone imagine what would happen if someone tries to ‘take away people's right to vote.’”
I am not sure who you are quoting; but it is not me. I never said anything about anyone trying to “take away people’s right to vote.”
Brady Cuthbert
No, it is not you that I quote. It is a generic politician, a populist who plays on crowd's emotions to grab as much power as he or she can.
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