[Paleo Conservative]

This is an excellent article. I read it when it was first published in 1996. It is one of the best defenses of the Electoral College I have ever read, but you didn't have to score 800 on the math portion of the SAT to understand it.

[Rocko]

Bumpitttt.

[yooper]

I have always considered an understanding of the electoral college as an intellectual litmus test with regard to acumen in politics and the roots of this country.

Show me someone who condemns the electoral college process and I'll show you an idiot who didn't pay attention in American History.....

[jocon307]

here is something you may enjoy

[Congressman Billybob]

Excellent article. I had read excerpts of it before, but not the whole thing. And yes, he discusses the math in a way that non-mathematicians can readily understand.

A couple years ago I wrote for the American Academy of Actuaries an article on the Electoral College. It was published in their magazine, Contingencies. I did the simple math to point out that small states who gain from the Electoral College were enough to defeat an amendment against the College in the Senate, and far more than enough to defeat it on ratification.

But, contrary to this article, I did some of the math to show that if District voting were used in all states, not just in Maine and Nebraska, the final election of Presidents would be closer two, though still not identical to, the popular vote model.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column, "And the Debate Winner is -- Lemony Snicket"

If you haven't already joined the anti-CFR effort, please click here.

[beavus]

Thanks for the article. It would be nice if this stuff were properly taught in high school. My high school teacher instead preached how unfair the system was because of the possibility of a popular vote loser to win the presidency.

[Cacique]

Somewhere in my house is the original issue of Discover where that article appeared. Iam glad they decided to print it again.

FREEPER (PARodrig) PAUL RODRIGUEZ FOR CONGRESS

[tricky_k_1972]

Bump for later reading.

[FoxInSocks]

Thanks for digging this article up -- very interesting. I like the baseball analogy.

[Naomi4]

Thank you for posting this. I saved that magazine for a long, long while and finally lost track of where I had put it. I thought I would never locate this excellent article again.

It is the best explanation of the electoral college I have ever seen.

God bless our founders and their infinite wisdom.

[Naomi4]

Thank you for posting this. I saved that magazine for a long, long while and finally lost track of where I had put it. I thought I would never locate this excellent article again.

It is the best explanation of the electoral college I have ever seen.

God bless our founders and their infinite wisdom.

[lepton]

To put it even more simply, it forces candidates to appeal to the country as a whole, and not to a few (or one) specific consituencies. It strongly inhibits regional candidacies - thereby maintaining a cohesive population, while not blocking variability.

As a side-effect, it also limits the effects of election fraud, requiring to be widespread in order to actually affect races; it makes recounts possible; and it makes sure that we actually do end up with a President, rather than keeping everything tied up in the courts throughout what should be a new President's term.

[Paleo Conservative]

Ping!

I'd like your opinion on this article.

Aren't you the Freeper who performed a statistical study on voting patterns in Florida in the 2000 elections?

[narses]

Long. Worth reading.

[xm177e2]

The electoral college also helps to protect us against fraud by sealing off each state from every other.

If we had a direct, popular election, cheating in one or two states that were already heavily partisan (with, say, Democratic governors and attornies general) could affect the election as a whole.

If there was another close election (like Kennedy/Nixon), and one candidate wanted a recount, he could demand it from every single precinct in the country--because picking up an exttra vote, anywhere, would benefit him.

[Gordongekko909]

Ping from the future!

[BamaGirl]

Wow thanks for posting this! Can't wait to show this to my husband!

[decal]

Excellent article, indeed - with one tiny exception not germane to the argument:

"Similarly, a spin of the roulette wheel isn't really random. The laws of physics, the shape of the ball, the currents in the air, and other factors will all determine where the ball lands. But a gambler can't calculate those factors any more than a voting booth can know which candidate an individual voter will choose."

The gambler can indeed calculate these factors, and has:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0595142362&itm=1

[SauronOfMordor]

One big advantage of the electoral system is that it tends to focus candidates into keeping people evenly happy with them all across the country, rather than being able to get enough support in narrow niches to win the popular vote

It works best under a two-party system, which tends to avoid the possibility of a candidate winning with much less than a majority. One dramatic example of minor parties splitting the vote was the Election of 1860. Lincoln only won 39.8% of the popular vote, with his voters concentrated in the North. The Southern vote was split among three parties. Lincoln won in an electoral landslide.

The result was a bloody civil war.

[ken21]

thanks.

[Paleo Conservative]

Here is an updated link to the Math Against Tyranny article on the Discover Magazine website. The original source URL I posted with the article in 2004 no longer works.

http://discovermagazine.com/1996/nov/mathagainsttyran914