Posted on 04/08/2019 3:09:25 PM PDT by EdnaMode
As the presidential campaign heats up, so too has the movement to abolish or otherwise neutralize the electoral college.
Some advocates argue that the electoral college was originally established to help less-populated states retain power, or to have every part of the country heard from in electing a chief executive. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) claims the system was designed to help the slave states.
But these are modern interpretations of what really happened at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The electoral college was designed with two purposes: to separate the branches of government in an attempt to avoid cabals and to prevent foreign corruption. Some of the Founding Fathers assumed it would almost never actually elect a president. In other words, we could say the electoral college failed to achieve most of what the founders designed it to do.
The electoral college was not a replacement for direct election because that possibility never received serious consideration at the convention. (Only two of 11 states voted for a popular election of the president.) As James Madisons notes make clear, there was very little support for a popular election of the president. The original idea in his influential Virginia Plan was that the new bicameral legislature Congress would itself gather to elect the executive, and the convention repeatedly returned to that idea.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I had heard before that ALL of the popular vote difference was from California. Indeed, I looked this up yesterday to verify it for myself. Sure enough, if you subtract out Trump and Clinton votes from California, Trump wins the popular vote in the remaining 49 states.
Not that I agree with this person’s interpretation of the Founder’s intent, but it’s quite amusing how the Founding Fathers are a bunch of worthless, dead, racist, irrelevant white guys until the Left wants to use them to act like they give a crap about this country’s political traditions and history.
In 92 when Clinton won with less than 50% of the popular vote the Ministry of Truth blathered on and on about how wonderful the Electoral College was because it magnified and legitimized his victory.
Yeah this whole electoral college thing cracks me up. You notice they are not trying to float a new constitutional amendment. Because they know they cant win. This country is going to have to have a schism. 2 separate countries Or a civil war is going to be needed to reset the constitution to where it was right after the last civil war.
where each state gets one vote.
Fine. It’s a failure.
As soon as you get 2/3 of each House of Congress and 38 State Legislatures to agree, you can get rid of it.
For Democrats, the electoral college is only a failure when they lose. If they win via the electoral college then they claim it’s a masterpiece created by our founding fathers.
That’s pretty incredible that one state could make the entire difference in popular vote.
Wapo idiot quotes super idiot Steve Cohen. Great.
Back when I was in HS, when we studied Civics, we were taught the reasoning behind the Electoral College. Rural areas feared getting exploited by urban areas. The Electoral College was established so that rural areas would not lose their voice in choosing a President. Logically, if the Electoral College is ever abolished, it should follow that the nation splits into individual states.
(No, I haven't read any other comments yet.)
BS, our founding fathers took precautions to prevent mob rule by the larger colonies.
The smaller colonies would never have joined without those precautions.
So it would make great since, be totally logical, if the smaller states, the red states, told the union to F off if they tried to implement mob rule today.
So lefty, put this where the sun does not shine and spin on it.
Can you imagine the nightmare of trying to figure out the outcome of a popular vote? Cheating would be out of control.
Id prefer it be reset to before the so-called civil war.
From now on, if someone wants to diss the Electoral College, just agree with but say a national popular vote is too unwieldy (imagine the nightmare of a nationwide recount) and too easy to rig. I think you should suggest a one county/one vote form of election.
The beauty is that it sounds fair so a lot of low-info voters would approve.
It is incredible. Without counting either candidates votes in California Trump wins the popular vote 57+ million to 55+ million. Here’s the link if anyone wants to check my arithmetic.
https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president/
As the recent shameful college admissions scandal has illustrated, universities are clearly not beacons of moralism and propriety. The Founding Fathers, who lived during a time when colleges were often founded as divinity schools, would be appalled at what institutions such as Wagner where you are a ‘fellow’ have become - echo chambers and ‘finishing schools’ for those who are looking for a ticket to societal connections.
The majority of you who hide behind slogans like ‘diversity’ are anything but diverse. You are so monolithic in your politically correct opinions and pronouncements such that you are no different or less predictable than a group of old Grateful Dead groupies who still drive Volkswagen microbuses with peace symbol bumper stickers. You would have to learn a lot to raise yourself to the level of stupid.
The Washington Compost is an enemy of the United States of America. The Founding Fathers would probably agree.
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