From: barber@jazz.concert.net (Scott Barber)
Subject: Re: How does the electoral college work?
Organization: MCNC Center for Communications -- CONCERT Network
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:36:58 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.233229.3739@news.ysu.edu> ah210@yfn.ysu.edu (Jeremy Gottlieb) writes:
>
>Sorry, bud, you were dead wrong.
>The electoral college is, in fact, a group of people who
>actually vote. The reasons for it are not quite how I believe you
>outlined, but rather that there vote gathering techniques were
>rather primitive at the time, and this was to guarantee that the
>right person would win. 

I'm not sure that the basis of the electoral college nor it's value
depends solely on the vote gathering technology, as implied here.

It's a rather outdated system, but still
>in place. Here's the specs on what happens:
>
>The popular vote in each state is tallied. In all except Maine 
>and Nebraska (see below), whoever wins the popular vote in the
>state wins all the electoral votes. Generally, the party who's
>candidate wins then picks the electors, and they meet in the
>state capitol on Dec. 16th. The votes are then sealed and sent
>to Washington where they sit in a safe until The President of the
>Senate, the Vice President, reads the votes out to the newly 
>inaugurated Congress. 
>Maine does the same system, only by Congressional district, with 
>the senators going to the winner. Nebraska has some sort of 
>formula. Sine they're both so small, it doesn't matter.
>
>This system was put in place mainly because they didn't have the 
>relatively sophisticated and accurate methods we have for voting 
>now, and this was a way to insure that whoever won the popular
>wote in each state won in the nation, the assumption being that
>whoever won the popular vote would when the presidency. Well, 
>someone in the founding Fathers didn't do their math very well,
>and it is possible to win without being the #1  popular vote
>getter. 

I also am unconvinced that this is the assumption that drove the
system of the electoral college.  The "math" is not that difficult.
I think there were other reasons for using the system that had to do
more with fairness between urban and rural states than a lack of 
sophistication in planning.

The implications of a purely popular vote strategy, as proposed by
having the nation go to the Maine system, is that most of political
power would immediately gravitate en masse to the major urban areas,
never to be seen in rural America again.  While there is relatively
little incentive for presidental candidates to spend much time in,
say, Wyoming, there is SOME, because in a close race, a small number
of electoral votes can mean the difference.

However, if we were on the popular vote only, the candidates would
spend ALL of their time in big cities, trying to get every last
vote out of them.  There would much less incentive, if any, to spend
time in rural areas, where the food is grown...

Conceivably, in this last election, someone could have become
>presidnet with less than 30% of the popular vote. Andrew Jackson
>and JQ Adams both won when their opponents got more of the pop vote.
>This is the reason why the system is seen as outdated, and there is a 
>push to nationally go to the same system Maine has.

This is as much the influence of the voting method itself (i.e. one
vote per office) as it is the electoral college, although your point
is well-taken.  I have been intrigued over the last few years with a
voting strategy called "approval" voting, in which voters are
allowed to vote for as many candidates as they would "approve" of,
or would be willing to accept in the office.

The result is most likely to result in the "Condorcet choice," or
that which would result if there were pairwise elections between all
pairs of candidates in the race.  Benefits are that the winner
would be the one who would be acceptable to the most number of
voters, and there would be no problem with being afraid of "wasting" 
a vote on an otherwise desireable third party candidate.

If we had used approval voting this year, for example, Clinton may
have received well over 50% of the popular vote, indicating more 
acceptance of the final choice than is indicated with the current 
voting methods.

Scott

Scott Barber	  "I voted for the crazy, bozo, ozone men."
barber@jazz.concert.net		"What is the freedom of the most
MCNC, RTP, NC, BVD 	 	 free?  To act rightly!" --Goethe
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