Electoral System
Nov
4
2008
Keep the electoral vote. It’s the vote for the president of the United States, not a vote for the president of the people.
I don’t want to live in the People’s Republic of America – I like the idea of separate States. The current system has worked for quite some time, and I think eliminating the electoral college, whether by actually removing it or by awarding electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote, will have some unforeseen negative consequences. I know, I know, some people don’t like the record of the electoral college. But remember, the states elected the president – the people didn’t elect him. The popular vote doesn’t matter. The United States is not a democracy; it is a representative democracy (AKA republic). Those who don’t like the electoral college want to tinker with how the country was setup.
The problem is that the movement to mess with the electoral college system is calling itself the National Popular Vote something. How can you oppose something that’s so popular? What would the opposing movement be called: the Unpopular Vote? That would never fly.
Keep states’ rights as more important than the federal government – keep the electoral system intact. Don’t move toward one big federal government. On the other hand, the states do have a right to send their electoral delegates however they want. So wouldn’t allowing the states to send mixed delegates also be supporting states rights?
Most of the arguments for the change are to have every vote count and to convince presidential candidates to spend time and, here’s the key, money in their state. Hey, if you want candidates to campaign in your state, maybe you should use some sort of incentive (tax breaks, subsidies, etc.) to attract the non-dominant party’s voters to live in your state! That way your state could be more competitive in the presidential campaigns and we wouldn’t have to mess with the proven record of the electoral college.
Or you could make your state more appealing to businesses in general so that more of them would setup operations in your state. That way, you wouldn’t care so much that presidential politicians weren’t spending time and money in your state – you would be getting money from businesses that are productive and useful (as opposed to political campaigns, which are counter-productive and mostly useless).
The part I was wondering about was the re-count. If there is a close presidential election, say a difference of a few thousand, then where will the re-count occur? If there is a contested state in the current electoral system, then the recount can be limited to that state or a certain county. But if the loser of the election wants to challenge a close national vote, wouldn’t the whole country have to be re-counted? You don’t want the individual candidate to be hand-picking a state or county to re-count.
Now then, listen to their voice; however, you shall solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.
1 Samuel 8:9
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:54 am and has been carefully placed in the Current Events category.