From: jce@ferris.cray.com (John Ellsworth)
Subject: Re: Electoral College
Originator: jce@ferris
Reply-To: jce@cray.com
Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: 4 Nov 92 23:43:27 CST


In article <1992Nov4.184704.21294@linus.mitre.org>, jswartz@mbunix.mitre.org (Swartz) writes:
> In article <Bx76rB.2Eu@rice.edu> byrd@lucerne.rice.edu (Marc J Byrd) writes:
> >The electoral college has outlived its original purpose. 
> >
> >Let's begin now a strategy to be done with the electoral college by
> >the next presidential election.
> >
> I agree.  The only reason these days for the electoral college is that it
> makes the election LOOK like a landslide victory.  Case in point:  Clinton
> received about 46% of the popular vote (give or take, I don't know the
> exact number).  But, if you look at the electoral college, he got, about
> 85%.  85% does not reflect the opinion of the American people.  There are
> 2 states that currently split their electoral college votes.  This seems
> more fair, but if everyone did it, then the electoral college would reflect
> the popular vote, and therefore the electoral college would be meaningless.
> I suppose there is some merit in wanting to record how many states a candidate
> carries.  However, if this is the case, then just give each state one
> electoral vote and then the number of electoral votes will tell you EXACTLY
> how many states each candidate carried.
> 

Well, I like the idea of one person, one vote period. No filters. 
The idea of the electoral college as a filtered voting process makes me angry.
I can understand where our founding fathers may have felt it necessary to include
such a process back when there was a lack of communication - when it was difficult to
have a reasonable discussion of the issues (Yeah, I know it's still hard sometimes).
Most voters then probably heard discussion of campaign issues second hand from 
local political leaders, and had little, if no understanding of life in other parts
of the country. Today, we have a highly informed population. We can have two way
discussion with the candidates that is viewed by the nation, repeated as many times as
necessary, on as many cable stations as you would like, and have the complete transcript
available over worldwide networks for all to peruse. We are informed. We can make these
decisions ourselves.


> I like Ross Perot's idea of having the polls over the weekends, to make it
> easier for more people to vote.  He suggested having the polls open on 
> Saturday and Sunday.  What might be even better is to have them open on
> Friday and Saturday so that people with weekend-only jobs (like students)
> have an easier time.  And it should be a crime for any form of news media
> (television, radio, newspaper) to publish results prior to the close of all
> polls.  In fact, why not keep the results from the media until all the polls
> close?
> 

Weekend voting - yes. Let as many people as possible have opportunity to vote.
Let's adopt the French rule about no public opinion polls for two weeks before an
election. Make people think for themselves a bit. And no results published until all
voting is through. As an afterthought - what if we had weekend voting that started
nationwide on Saturday at 10:00 EST and continued until Sunday at say 18:00 EST. ALL
polls open the same time, ALL polls close the same time. No one can be said to vote
ahead or behind anyone else...

And, one final thought - I think a year long campaign is way too long. Especially when
we have a President and Vice President campaigning full time - or what about the people
of Arkansas without a Governor for a year. It's too long, and too expensive. All campaigns
should be run in a couple of months. In one of the David Frost interviews with the three
Pres. candidates, David teases President Bush (I think) about how we Americans "run"
for office, and the British "stand" for office.


John.
jce@cray.com