Electoral College: Should it stay? Or should it go?

What say you?

It should stay

It is an exact replica of what people we have in concress and should stay if congress stays as it is.

Unless you want the presidential elections waged solely in the 20 largest cities in the United States and a corresponding increase in the political power of big city mayors...

...then I suggest you support keeping the electoral college.

I support awarding each state in the union an equal number of electoral votes.

It should stay and I almost agree with Albert.

And the primary for all fifty states should be on the same fucking day. No more Iowa and New Hampshire deciding who gets the nomination by knocking others out.

I think it should go. It's original purpose was to help elect a president based on his policies, not where he came from, which some of the uneducated rural people would just do. People way out in the middle of nowhere didn't know what the politicians stood for, so they had the electoral college basically decide the vote for the people who didn't know anything. At least, that's my understanding of the stupid confusing system!

It should stay.

If it goes, we should have civil war.

Bad idea.

That would mean only extremely wealthy candidates able to fund nationwide campaigns could ever run for president.

A rotating system of staggered, regional primaries would be better.

Voting itself needs to go. I want totalitarian monarchy back. To quote Nicholas II, people are children, they need a tsar, not a vote.

And when you go to the polls and look around you CANNOT in good conscience disagree. Only about 1% of the population actually has the sufficient brainpower to vote responsibly. A sovereign raised from birth to rule is the only true valid system. People just don't want to hear it because it makes them look humanity in the face and see our pathetic system for what it is: idiots elected by "idiots" to govern both idiots and the small percentage of true intellectuals.

You're understanding of the stupid confusing system clearly shows that you are the stupid confused one.

It's purpose was to help protect the smaller states from larger ones.

Would you rather have California, Texas, Florida and New York dominate the rest of the country?

And if you believe that the electoral college came into existence because people in the middle of nowhere didn't know what the politicians stood for then I submit that in 2009 you should be a strong supporter of the Electoral College given that millions of people are clueless about what politicians stand for.

I'm willing to bet the people back when this country was founded had a better grasp on who the politicians were and what they stood for then people in this country today.

It's not should. It's will have a Civil War OR a breakup of the country.

I could go for this too.....

Of course such a system fails when the good monarch dies off and is replaced by a moron who wrecks the country. History is replete with examples of such things.

Really if you are going to have a monarch it should be chosen by psychological testing (to ensure stability) and other skills. It should not be heredity and there should not be families serving consecutively.

That did not work out too well for the Romanov's

Or the Russian people.

Or the world...

It should stay. The Electoral College provides some (not a whole lot, but some) counterweight to the major population centers.

It's gonna happen anyway.

No. It's original purpose, and purpose to this day, is a recognition that the United States is not one single country but a federation of 50 states, each of which is semi-autonomous. Democratic elections in each state choose the state's leaders. But at the federal level, it is the states that choose between themselves who will be president.

Getting rid of that basically means turning the states into mere administrative districts, rather than the semi-autonomous entities they are supposed to be. We have gone way too far in that direction already; I am not in favor of any measures that try to take it even further.

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Mandate from Heaven seemed to work pretty well.

Don't they tend to anyway? After all, it's not like much attention gets paid to smaller states even with an electoral college.

To some extent yes but it would be much worse without a electoral college.

Even Kansas?

No, that favors smaller states over larger ones (in both terms of geography and population) far too much.

A better solution would be to change how many people it takes to get a new Congressman every decade. A million people for every Congressman would reduce power of the larger states quite nicely. Only counting citizens, nationals, and/or residents for apportionment would curb the rising power of the southern half of the country too.

Um... no.

California has 36.7 million people. The US has 304 million people.

California has 53 representatives out of 435, 12.18%

With 36 representatives out of 304, that reduces California's fraction to 11.8%. , a 4% reduction in California's power. If the fractions worked out so that it was 37/304, you're back up at 12.17%.

But perhaps I oversimplify. There are, after all, 7 states with less than 1 million people. Assume they all get one rep each. That's 7 reps, 5,126,438 people, as it is now. Which puts 299 million people in the other states. So we have a total of 299+7 = 306 representatives, not 304.

Unfortunately, that still doesn't help your case much, because 36/306 is still 11.8% and 37/306 is still 12.12%. We're basically talking rounding errors here. Worse, an additional 4 or 5 states would only have 1 representative instead of the 2 they have now. Sure, each one is worth more, but 2/435 is still bigger than 1/306.

Unless you propose to keep the current House size, in which case, I have to wonder where you're going to get the rest of the representatives from. It can't be from population distribution, otherwise you end up with exactly the same distribution as we have right now.

All figures taken from the US Census Bureau via Google.

Well, if we'd gotten rid of the electoral college and went with the popular vote, Hillary Clinton would be President right now. Can't say I see anything wrong with that then...

But no, the smaller states need protection from being overrun by heavily populated states. I can see its usefulness.

I don't care how incompetent or savvy the sovereign may be. The important factor is that he can get things done in a quick, easy manner. That's what his advisers are for. I'll take the worst monarch over WHOEVER you consider to be our best president or statesman any day.

As for the comment about Nicholas II, it goes back to what I said about bringing the sovereigns up right. Alexander III spent a pathetic amount of time preparing Nicholas for the heavy duty of rule which should have begun from the time he was old enough to read. Louis XVI is another example. They didn't even expect him to assume the throne so they were apt to let him tinker around with model ships rather than prepare him as a contingent, but due to the untimely death of his father, upon the death of Louis XV, the crown was thrust upon him. If there existed proper metaphysical training from tutors in the ways of law and duty, I highly doubt the revolutions would have succeeded.

That being said, no one has the authority to execute divinely appointed royals. I note that God punished Russia and France SEVERELY for what they had done, just as merry old England got a good bitchslapping after their execution of King Charles.

One final thing is that for monarchy to work, you MUST use heredity. Otherwise, you're facing civil war EVERY time a sovereign dies. I don't pretend it's a perfect system, but I do believe it is the "most perfect" human beings can make of a government. I'll take it ANY day to the cancers of democracy and that of its mob rule.

Oh, and my preferred system is the ONLY one which has existed longer than 500 years. (there's a reason for that)

The Russian people brought that plague upon themselves. The Romanovs were divinely ordained to rule. Communism was God's wrath in response to their regicide.

The sooner Texas secedes/Apophis comes, the better.

You don't need heredity. In fact heredity will cause the system to collapse like it has in the past. You're not facing Civil War every time if you set the system up right.

And God punishing Russia and France and England? Really?