From: best@anasazi.com (Mike Best)
Subject: Re: Electoral College (was Re: Election of Judges)
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 20:23:10 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.180517.16004@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> fcrary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Frank Crary) writes:
>In article <tal691.717389416@huxley> tal691@huxley.anu.edu.au (Tonio Loewald) writes:
>>Why have electoral colleges at all. Why not just count the votes?
>
>Because direct democracy is extremely dangerous.

Yes!

>>By the way, when I say "preferential" I do not mean "proportional".
>>In a preferential system, you nominate your first, second, third,
>>etc. choices. If your first choice cannot win, your vote becomes
>>a vote for your second choice, etc. until someone has an absolute
>>majority.
>
>Depending on how you set up the system, this sort of thing often
>gives one candidate or another an artificial advantage (E.g. based on
>how yuo determin that a candidate "cannot win", etc...)
 
Very true.  I would also add that the point made by the former poster
indicates another problem.  You see, the current system has a magnifying
effect on the election creating the sense of legitimacy and that of
a clear decision.  Under the above proposal we would have multiple
elections creating confusion over the ultimate results thus weakening
any mandate the president elect might otherwise have.

>>The founding fathers didn't have telephones and computers. Electoral
>>colleges (it seems to me) were a device for communicating the results
>>of regional elections to the centre of government. They are unncessary.
>
>Apparently, there was no discussion of this problem when the Constitution
>was drafted. The electoral college addressed objections to direct 
>democracy: The electors are _not_ required to vote for any particular
>candidate. They can decide that the popular candidate is a liar and
>has mislead and tricked the voters, and vote for someone else.

The faithless elector is rare in the extremus.  However, it is not 
necessary to amend the Constitution because simple state legislation
can be introduced to force the elector to vote as he/she is "supposed"
to or even to remove the human factor from the equation entirely.
(I wonder about the latter, I mean - what if Hitler were elected, 
these electors could prevent him from taking office).

>>It seems pretty galling to me that an election where one candidate has
>>a 10-21% lead in the polls may lose because of the distribution of
>>electoral colleges -- were everyone to vote as expected TODAY. Isn't
>>franchise more important than an obsolete gesture to state's rights?
>
>Where did state's rights come from? It has nothing to do with the 
>issue. Your real objection seems to be with the "winner take all"
>system of selecting electors. But this has _nothing_ to do with
>constitutional structure of the electoral college, it is just the
>result of state election laws. Any state can change to a district-by-
>district system whenever it wants.
>
>(By the way, there _are_ many things more important than the franchise:
>Protecting individual rights and preventing tyranny, even tyranny of
>the majority, are some of them)

Right on and I would add that the process produces better candidates 
due to the requirement that they appeal to a broad cross section of
the country in order to win.  This process simply produces moderate
candidates.

(Nicely done Frank!)

Mike Best
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution