Electoral College

[JOEBIALEK]

The framers of the U.S. Constitution created the Electoral College as a result of a compromise for the presidential election process. During the debate, some delegates felt that a direct popular election would lead to the election of each state's favorite son and none would emerge with sufficient popular majority to govern the country. Other delegates felt that giving Congress the power to select the president would deny the people their right to choose. After all, the people voted for their representatives to the federal legislature. The compromise was to set up an Electoral College system that allowed voters to vote for electors, who would then cast their votes for candidates, a system described in Article II, section 1 of the Constitution.

Each State is allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representatives (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the Census).

Whichever party slate wins the most popular votes in the State becomes that State's Electors-so that, in effect, whichever presidential ticket gets the most popular votes in a State wins all the Electors of that State.

The debate has started again as to whether the U.S. Constitution should be amended in order to change the presidential election process. Some promote eliminating the Electoral College in favor of a direct popular vote for president while others believe the Electoral College should remain unchanged. Just as compromise solved the initial problems of the framers so it is that compromise can solve this problem. The solution is to change the electoral votes to electoral points and reward each candidate a percentage of points based on the percentage of popular votes received in each state. This would eliminate the "winner take all" system thus allowing for all the votes to count. A voter is more apt to believe their vote counted when a percentage of popular votes are taken into account rather than the "all or nothing" system currently in existence. Further, this new system would integrate the desire for a popular vote for president with the need for the individual states to determine who actually gets elected. For example, in Alabama, President Bush won 63% of the popular vote and therefore would be awarded 5.67 electoral points as compared to Senator Kerry with 37% of the popular vote and 3.33 electoral points. In the event of a tie, the national popular vote results would decide the outcome.

If one tabulated the final totals from Election 2004, they would find Bush with 274.92 electoral points versus Kerry with 257.71. The existing electoral college votes shows Bush 286 to Kerry 252. I believe this compromise would reflect a truer intent of the will of the people as exercised through their states. This would also prevent the smaller "red" and "blue" states from being virtually ignored in favor of the larger "battleground" states.

[Eddie]

I am in favor of an amendment going away from the electorial college system. I feel the current system makes My "Kentucky" vote less important than those across the river, as Ohio has many more electorials. The system should be totally popular vote. Every vote should be of the same value. Maybe then we would see those running for president actualy spend time in smaller states, such as KY or WV. Of course, Kentucky is such a Republican state, the Democrates figure why bother, and the republicans figure the Ky electorials are in the bag, so they don't spend any time with our state either. I guess either way, the whole electorial system really just depends on which candidate has the most money. There's so many problems with vote counting in every state, that I'm not sure any of us really know for sure who won the last two elections?

[mark]

..........I'm in favor of leaving it the way it is & for only one reason.

That reason is............if a Constitutional Convention is ever started for this particular issue, then it opens up everything & allows all the wackos to try & pass their own agendas. We would have "The save the whales" bill, others wanting to repeal the 2nd Amendment, & yet others wanting their dogs & cats to be eligible to vote!

Before you know it, this is NO organization. I'd rather have the Electoral College somewhat faulty & in working condition instead of allowing mass confusion in our country.

The Electoral College has worked for years, in my opinion,
leave it alone..............see ya Mark

[Chuck]

I'd rather have the People represented, but.

The current system is fundamentally based on the belief that all men will be represent equally. This is by groups with larger numbers and States having the "Winner Take ALL" policy. Larger, single opinionated states are able to dominate an election.

Currently we depend on Ohio, Calif. and Florida to (For the most part) elect a President. The rest of us just show up at the polls. These are the 'Battleground' states. The one the politicians choose to champaign more because of the amount they can swing.

The Electoral College needs the make over not the US Constitution.

Divide the states to each county=1 vote.

The vote tally process would take longer but that is why we have elections in November.

[kdown]

Consider this. Elimination of the electorial college would assure that the heavily populated states would elect the president.
Smaller states, like KY, would carry no weight whatsoever and little, if any, campaign money would be spent in the Bluegrass.
CA, TX, MI, OH, PA, NY would elect the president.
Scary thought