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

Entry: The Electoral College of the United States - A3683315
Author: Shagbark (William Hubbell) - U170775

On Electing a President of the United States by means of an Electoral College.
I figured it was time to try submitting this and see what the Peers had to say.

TYhumb twiddling time.

Ok, a couple of things to be going on with:

double quotes - these should either be single quotes, as in 'one person-one vote', or if actual speech, in italics with no quotes, as in <>

The first person references will have to be changed to something like, 'This researcher'

<>

= Its members meet...

noted and changed .

I cannot catch a slithy togue
Or ride a flying Llama.
But at the polls I cast my vote
I voted for Obama

Ok, I am finding the tone of the article a bit confused - maybe its just me, but it feels as if the content of the article is meant to be EC neutral, but the tone suggests the EC is a bad thing.

I would prefer it if the article was less vague about the Pros and Cons - the arguments are obvious to someone who spent the last year following the US elections on a variety of American fora, but not perhaps to someone reading about the EC for the first time trying to understand what the hell is going on.

Could we have some actual comaparison of the voting power of the states for instance? Arrgh, can't find decent source, but stuff like voters in Wyoming having almost 7 times less people per electoral vote than Texas, making their vote 7 times more powerful.

Or the counter-argument that says that really Californians have the most powerful vote, because although they have second highest population/ECvote, California is theoretically more likely to be significant than Montana... err, oh yeah, thats the Banzhaf power index argument...

Except of course that Californian votes have not been important for ages, because historically they are very solidly blue - any state solidly red or solidly blue is disenfranchised to some extent, whereas the Kings of the Swingers, Florida and Ohio are always important, and not everyone in the US is happy that the Floridian jungle VIPs have so much influence.

Would voter turnout in solid red and solid blue states be higher if it was the popular vote that counts??? Would 3rd party influence decrease if the EC is abolished?

To summarise my feelings:
I would quite like a bit more discussion on the pros and cons of the EC.

Feel free to ignore me though.
vp

/Not convinced the EC is a bad thing, but its definitely odd. Less odd than the primaries though.

interesting read (a bit heavy though):
userpages.umbc.edu/~nmiller/POLI423/VOTING%20POWER%20IN%20THE%20EC.ppt

Comments on the Electoral College system, in the first conception its an electoral form borrowed from the German Federalism of the time, in which Electors from the various German Principalities of the age voted for the Emperor, who was elected from a roster of eligible candidates. This era was an important precursor to the evolution of the modern German national state.

In the conception of the American system, it was a device for encouraging national unity and a de facto mandate for a two party system, since the system does not allow a candidate to be elected to the presidency who hasn't got a strong national following, or failing of a win in the Electoral College, wins a majority of the vote in the House of Representatives.

Currently, the Electoral College system as it stands discourages third party candidates, since it is nearly impossible for them to generate a majority allowing them to win an office at the national level versus the entrenched major parties.

The system could be made more responsive to minor parties by means of allowing each of the elected Electors to take their vote separately to a National Convention of the Electoral College, and there allow them to broker deals where they're trading Electoral College votes for Cabinet posts or other important appointive positions. This would take a constitutional amendment, though there is nothing in the current law that prevents the Elector from casting their vote however they like, no matter which candidate they're pledged to. This has several times in American history already become an important issue. Strictly speaking, when one casts a vote at the popular vote level in the presidential election of the USA, one is voting for an elector pledged to vote for a specified candidate, not directly for the candidate, though it doesn't appear so on the ballot.

More on Electoral College mechanics, in the 2000 Bush vs Gore race, the USA came closer than it ever has before to a constitutional crisis, when Gore, thinking that the Democratic Party had retained control of the House of Representatives, attempted to force the election into the House of Representatives. Gore didn't concede the election until it became clear the Democrats had lost control of the House of Representatives to the Republicans. If the Democrats had retained control of the House of Representatives and Gore had succeeded in forcing the election into the House of Representatives, then Gore might have been elected president. In turn this would have set the stage for a constitutional crisis, since the Democrats had carried only 6 of 50 States, leaving more than the 3/4 of the States required to call for a constitutional convention in the hands of the Republicans, who could theoretically have unilaterally called for a Constitutional Convention, and unilaterally have re-written the Constitution. A call for a constitutional convention does not follow automatically on the Electoral College vote though, but must be called for by resolutions of a minimum of 3/4 of the States. It is doubtful that Bush could have carried the measure had he tried, but not improbable that he might have tried to do it and not impossible that he might have succeeded. If a Constitutional Convention convenes, then even the pre-established national government has to give way.

Perhaps the researcher here meant Gore would have only had the support in the house of 16 states. His showing on the Electoral map shows he had more states than that.
Regardless, I do not think that this would have resulted in a constitutional convention.

I have made considerable revision to this article.
I am still wondering how to handle my Reference list.

Note to VogonPoet-
As author of tis piece I do feel that the Electoral College is a bad thing. However I often feel like I am on thin ice trying to defend this position. Therefore I have attempted to keep the article neutral ( where posible) and let people make up their own minds.
To often in the past when I have injected things like global warming or gay rights into an article it has kept that article out of the EC.

Surely you are not suggesting that excess heat generated from homosexual relationships is in some way responsible for the 2000 election result? Woah, teach that controversy.

Ok, more concrete queeries:

Your 'Third Party' section:

From the tone, and what you said in your post, I take it your
'one more reason for not having an Electoral College'
is meant to be that the EC severely limits the influence of 3rd parties, which is a bad thing. However, currently your paragraph goes

[3rd party EC success rare]
[Recently Wallace managed to get himself some EC votes]
[He didn't quite get enough]
[Had he got enough EC votes, he (and although you don't make it very explicit, presumably also the people who voted for his party) could have influenced US policy by bargaining with his EC votes]
[This is a bad thing].

So the paragraph seems to suggest that 3rd party influence is bad.
Assuming (and if I am reading it wrong, feel free to hurl at tomatoe at me) you meant to say the EC is bad because it means only very rarely do 3rd parties ever have a tiny chance to influence events, then shouldn't structure be:



[One disadvantage of EC: it means only very rarely do 3rd parties ever have a tiny chance to influence events]
[This is a bad thing]
[Recently Wallace managed to get himself some EC votes]
[He didn't quite get enough]
[Had he got enough EC votes, he could have influenced US policy by bargaining with his EC votes]
[So even this relatively brilliant eg of 3rd party success wasn't enough to kick partisan @$$.]



I think you could definitely emphasise exactly why one-person-is-more-or-less-than-one-vote thing more (as in the examples I suggested in initial contribution to this thread), because certainly the first two or three times I read about how the EC works, it took me a fair while to fully comprehend the inequality - it was a bit of a 'you can not be serious ' moment, and any non-US citizen reading about the EC for the first time in this entry might not fully comprehend just how bizarre it is.



The 'How it all started' Section would be ideal place to explain any agruments *for* the EC in more detail - something about the popular vote would completely marginalise the rural areas, farmers would have no representation.


farmers not represented? ZOMG, what will happen - the city slickers will take over, agricultural policy will suffer, the US will starve??? If their numbers are marginal, whats wrong with marginalising them




that was all just my of course...

vp

your six pence worth?
As to third party involvement when I first researched it I thought that the two major parties always got all the votes. Further research showed this is not true.
It sounds like a good idea putting the reasons for the EC in front of the objections, but I am worried about making that part to long. So I think I will just rearrange sections.

Yeah, the pound has taken a real hammering recently

that explains the sixpense.
In the states hammers do thepounding not visa versa

shall I pound on the door with these and see who answers?

knock-knock Who'se there
Boo, Boo who?

I know the economy is bad but you don't need to cry about it