From: best@anasazi.com (Mike Best)
Subject: Re: EC PROTECT MINORITY R
Organization: Anasazi, Inc.  Phoenix, Arizona USA
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:33:54 GMT

In article <1glfveINN90v@transfer.stratus.com> cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares) writes:
>In article <1992Dec15.160105.19640@anasazi.com>, best@anasazi.com (Mike Best) writes:
>> You must be talking about the Congress.  We have had ample turnover in
>> the Executive branch.
>
>It definitely applies to Congress.  My comment was more aimed at the 
>two-party system than to the Electoral College.  My point was that
>your claimed advantage of the EC that is "maintains the two-party system" 
>is not indisputably an advantage.

Of course, this is an arguable point I agree.  However, I value the political
stability of the regime more than the proposed experiments to turn our
regime into either a pure republic or a pure democracy.  This is clearly
not what the founders designed and I am trying to point out the 
incompatibilities between the proposals and the design of this regime.

>> True, N-party systems _can_ produce minority presidents.  If you go to a 
>> runoff system after this event to increase the seeming popular support
>> then you run the risk of delegitimizing the election by:
>> 
>> 1.  Dragging the process out.
>
>Pish, tosh.  The process now takes nearly two years now.  From the casting 
>of the first vote in New Hampshire until the last yell in November, it 
>takes what, ten months?  What's another month?  Better yet, slide the 
>general popular vote somewhere into the middle of that span; there's
>plenty of wasted room for it there.

The campaign is a far different thing than the election itself.  You may
wish to address campaign reform as a separate subject because it has 
nothing to do with the EC.

>> 2.  Setting the stage for behind closed doors deals.  That is, in a runoff,
>>     party X agrees to support candidate Y in exchange for something such
>>     as a Supreme Court position, policy, etc.
>
>So now it happens within the parties themselves.  So what?  Don't you
>agree with me that Mario will look striking in black robes?

Your point is valid and I was illustrating the runoff elections do not
prevent such deals from being made, I think that they actually increase
the potential for abuse.  Currently, the EC functions as a paradigm of 
our democracy in many ways, one of which is the requirement to form 
coalitions of minorities to create a majority.  This process is evident,
for example, on the Hill where legislators and the executive must jockey
to do the same in order to be effective.

>> 3.  The rules of the game are changed because all you have to do is come in
>>     second in the "primary" and then make deals to win in the runoff.
>
>I really don't see the horror involved in changing this from an intramural
>sport to a varsity one.

This is an insufficient argument in favor of your proposal.  I think that
much of our differences are derived from an implicit misunderstanding
about the nature of the United State's government.  Specifically, the concept
that we are a simple republic is what I believe to be the cause of this
misunderstanding.  Now, if we are to change our form of government let us
do so with a clear understanding of what it is we are changing.  I will
attempt to post an article describing why it is that we are neither a 
pure republic nor a pure democracy.  This should be the basis from which
to attack the EC.

Mike Best
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.politics.perot