h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just a small note:

''

oh. I feel foolish. Let's try again.

Just a small note:

'The Electoral College system was chosen over a direct vote system as the founders believed the common people were generally misinformed and easily misled'


' Since the people of a state vote for a President, it should be required that the Electors vote for whom they are pledged to represent, not themselves.'

Have the founders been proven wrong? Or are you saying that, in your opinion, the Founders of the United States were wrong?

Personally, I think that the Founders were understandably working within their own period of history and they made a quite amazing balance between flexibility and rigidity and that it is likely time to use the flexibility to modify the electoral college. This is, of course, your point, as near as I can tell. You have, however, as near as I can tell, taken it as a given that 'it should be required that the Electors vote for whom they are pledged to represent, not themselves' without really providing any support.


Did this make any sense.

On TV they interviewed a Republican member of the Electoral college from West Virginia. He felt that the current president has not fullfilled the terms of his office and should be replaced. Since he was elected to represent the republican ticket it is a question of whether he will set aside his conscience and vote for bush or whether he will abstain leaving one less vote in the Republican column. this is under the category faithless electors. I am also updating the issue of winner take all in colorado with a footnote.

I could not agree more about the poor system the Electoral College is. The probability that this entry will be shortly outdated is, however, a rather large concern. All the statistics you have named change so frequently that the entry will require constant updating. The whole thing is written with a very 'current' style, such that any reader happening upon the entry in a year or two may very well be utterly confused as to what's going on. Maybe instead of trying to get this in the Edited Guide, you could submit it to The Post? Or else, if you want to keep on with Peer Review, you could add things like 'as of October 2004' to give a frame of reference to the reader. Keep up the good work! This is forming well.
EMR

the answer to that is when does the Electoral college cast their ballot- December.
I have further revised the entry with a view to the future (3 Nov. 2004)

revision continues(10 November) on this entry and will until there is an official total.

That official total will be when the Electoral college votes in December and we see if there are any abstensions or faithless electors.

Actually the votes are cast in December but they are tallied on 6 Jan. by tellers from the US Senate. So the question of faithless electors may be a long time coming.

It appears there was one Elector from Minnesota who voted for the Vice President on the Presidential ballot.
the final tally was for Vice President Cheney 286 Edwards 252
for President Bush 286 Kerry 251 Edwards 1.
also 1 Senator was found to dispute the Ohio ballot but after discussion the 20 electoral votes from Ohio were awarded to Bush.

Can this entry ever be kept up to date? It concerns me that it may get into the EG, and then every time something new happens you'll have a h*ll of a time keeping the entry accurately reflecting the situation.

It will be years before anything more happens. the January 6th date was the last official thing that had to happen before Bush takes office for his second term. We may revisit this matter when candidates start working on the 2008 campaign but until then I do not expect anything to change and by then I probably will have forgotten all about this Entry. there are so many other entries for scouts to look at that it may never get recommended.

' when candidates start working on the 2008 campaign'

Didn't they start that today?

let me rephrase that- instead of when they are working on the 2008 campaign -when I pay attention to the 2008 campaign. they can work all they want but for the next few years it is someone elses problem and my SEP field is on concerning it.

I still think that this is too time specific for the Edited guide and will date more rapidly than most

I agree. I think a more general entry about the electoral college system would find a place in the EG, but as I said this would end up needing to be updated far too much if it does not wish to become outdated within a few months.

Did you mention that they shouldn't allow anyone who wants to be the President to be a Presidential candidate? They're always the last people who should allowed to do the job.

BBS

I am changing the title on this article because I have always intended it to be about the Electoral College- Not about any one candidate and not about whether we should allow Naturalized citizens to run for President. That should be a whole different article.

Actually, I don't think the suggestion that this would become outdated is an issue, as long as all the statistics are cited as examples, e.g. in the 2004 election.... which I think they are. You do need to read through it and check your punctuation, though!

I think that the title of the Article and the Article are dealing with the Reform of the Electoral College. This Entry is describing something that is WIP. It would be a totally different thing if the reform actually happened and was over. Hence my argument about it sounding dated.

It's like talking about demolishing and re-constructing a building. The original building is still there, no-one's considering to demolish it seriously, even though some might agree it would be a good idea.

But then again, maybe this is just me...

HELL

curriously in all that long discussion nobody mentioned that I had left out the 12th ammendment. I just ran across it on a this day in history note that said Jefferson and Burr both got 73 votes. So there is precident for the Constitution being ammended about this topic. why didn't anyone mention it before?