Posted on 11/09/2004 12:43:37 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The mini-drama that played itself out Wednesday morning over Ohio's vote was eerily reminiscent of the turmoil in Florida that greeted the nation four years ago. And while the suspense was short-lived and the results clearer in Ohio in 2004 than in Florida in 2000, it should never have happened.
The time has come — after the second election in a row where the results in one state ultimately determined the outcome of the election — for the nation to drop out of the Electoral College.
President Bush amassed a 3.5 million-vote margin nationwide over Sen. John Kerry, and at the same time garnered the most votes ever cast for a presidential candidate. That should have been enough to seal his victory.
Yet a swing of 1 percent of Ohio's more than 5.5 million votes cast would have put Ohio's 20 electoral votes in Kerry's column, made him president-elect, and pushed the 2004 campaign into the same demoralizing funk that inflicted the electorate for the past four years when Democrat Al Gore won the popular vote contest but lost the Electoral College.
Confidence that every vote counts is a bedrock principle of American democracy, even if, as a republic, our Constitution binds us to the anachronism of voting for electors rather than candidates. The old reasoning that the campaigns would ignore small states and spend all their time and money in the largest, voter-rich states simply no longer holds true.
Instead, the candidates spent the campaign in a dozen or so states where polls showed the race was closest. In the end, the votes cast by 1.8 million Georgians for the president were worth much less than the 2.8 million he got in Ohio.
For the better part of 50 years, polls have indicated a majority of Americans think the Electoral College is outdated. After two close elections where its existence has contributed to voter distrust of the system, it's time to end it.
Save for later.
More nearly correct is that the mega-cities like Boston, NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles and a few others would decide every election.
This is stupid and idiotic! One state DID NOT DETERMINE the outcome of the election. ALL OF THEM COMBINED DID!
If we went to a popular vote system, then in theory, ONE SINGLE PERSON could determine the outcome of the election according to these idiots. Imagine it's all tied up at 59,000,000 to 59,000,000 and the last voter goes to the booth in Hawaii. The next day, articles are written how "ONE VOTER" should not determine the outcome of the election, blah, blah, blah.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Can I vote for a dimocrat for pooper-scooper? They just seem so natural at the job ;-P
Good idea! Let's go to a system where the votes of 2 states will decide the election! California and New York!
The scary thing is, the more people believe that we live in a democracy, the more they WANT to live in one. It's because they will be able to vote themselves other peoples' stuff! But eventually, the society will become some sort of socialist state, probably totalitarian in nature.
That's one reason that the government of the United States was never supposed to be a democracy, but a Constitutional Republic, where only 1/2 of 1/3 of the government was supposed to be popularly elected!
Mark
All you have to do is look to Canada and see what we would be without the EC. Western provences have little or no say in national events.
I have a better idea - lets make the electoral college a county-by-county count, where each county gets one electoral vote. That ought to put a damper on the fraud-ridden blue cities.
People should just forget about this. I figured a win by either Kerry or Bush as long as the pop. vote and the EC were the same would end this discussion. I guess I was wrong about that.
Face it folks, the little states and the underpopulated states will NEVER go for it. And there are A LOT more of them. This is DOA and unless Charlie Rangel decides to waste his time on another non-starter I can see this doing anything but wasting ink & trees.
Have to disagree with you here. The actual real person who's role is an elector is our last check and balance.
Fortunantely the situation has never came up, but what if after the election but before the electorial college vote, something really bad came out about the President elect? Or, if it was proven beyound doubt that there was voter fraud, or, well you fill in the crime. The point being, there is one last final check on the system.
I say leave it as it is.
I also wonder how easy it would be for a state like New Mexico, that could swing either way, to be manipulated in a close election.
If we had a strong impartial media we would be ok, but the media would not be honest or vigorously pursue election fraud if it benefited their viewpoint.
The way many in the media and liberals in general see us as fools who simply do not understand how good liberalism is for us, I know they think the end justifies the means.
And you know, after 2006 when we're at 62 Senators, abolishing the Senate will be next.
Well, we had a test case in Colorado where the state voluntarily proposed to give up their small state "clout" of winner take all and divide the electoral vote by the percentage of the candidates. This state decided correctly that to give up the electoral vote would result in their being ignored in all elections to come and they stayed with the electoral college.
What happened is each party thought they had a chance to win the total state vote and so in the end they did not vote to split their vote. No, the electoral college is here to stay. Lets see California, New York, and Florida vote to divide their electoral votes evenly between the candidates.
Can you supply some evidence to support this claim?
So much falseness in the article, it's hard to know where to start.
"a majority of Americans think the Electoral College is outdated"
Oh sure, we want to be ruled by the folks that live in 8 or 10 major cities around the country. Their values and needs are so similar to ours--NOT!
The "majority" they speak of are extremely stupid, live in huge mega cities and think mob rule is just dandy.
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