The US Electoral College, to be specific. Specifically, whether it should be abolished, in favor of something else (direct voting, possibly?) Selphie wanted me to make this thread, for some reason. I guess because she was too tired to make it herself, and she wants to hear all of your opinions on this. She's writing a paper on it, that's due at Midnight... tonight. (We'll see how many replies we can get in before then, eh? Heh.) As for myself, I can probably benefit from this somewhat by doing my persuasive speech on it. I'll probably mostly use the links at the bottom of that wikipedia page, for which I've provided to you a link to, there.
...normally, I would stay out of the Intellectual Forum... but. Selphie
begged me to make this thread... so...
I hadn't really thought much about this topic until tonight, although I had remembered that it got a lot of people upset after the 2000 election, when Gore won the popular vote but Bush won the Electoral Vote. After reading through that page, and another page about Electoral Colleges in general, I'm a bit confused as to what I think the decision should be, as to whether or not the college should be abolished. On one hand, you have the interest of the small states, and on the other, you have the interest of the larger-populated states. The people from the rural areas throughout the states might get overshadowed by the interest of these bigs states if popular vote is all that is needed. Big cities obviously won't have the same interest as the small rural towns... Then again, should the small town, with its smaller population, have the same weight behind them as that of the big city, which has more people to consider, or take care of?
As things stand, in most states, the person who wins the popular vote there gets all the electoral votes, except in Maine and Nebraska, where apparently the popular vote of each district earns one vote for that candidate. It has been suggested that this method be used everywhere, but evidently this method makes it easier for the loser of the popular vote to win, and the smaller states get an even bigger advantage.
Evidently, the electoral method makes it easier to recount the votes in case a recount is needed (such as the case was in 2000) but it also causes for a greater likelihood that a recount would be needed, due to the "Swing Vote" states that could have a very close popular vote.
Another benefit of the college is that if someone in a state makes a bunch of fraudulant votes, the inflation for that candidate will only effect that one state from which these votes are coming from. Whereas in a direct election, those fake votes would cause an inflation for that candidate across the entire country.
Something else in favor of the Electoral vote is that apparently, it's really hard to to amend the Constitution. There have been 700 tries to amend the Constitution, so that the Electoral College would be abolished. In... 1970? such a bill was brought forth, and it was passed by the House, and accepted by the President, but rejected by the Senate, where it received a majority vote, just not 2/3 of the vote. So in 2000, when Hillary and others tried to get the college abolished again, ?Congress? didn't even consider it.
The majority of the people in the country, however, feel that the Electoral College should be abolished. Or at least according to several polls sited on that Wikipedia site (that's where I got most of this.) Claims against this are that the College disenfranchises voters from big cities, who's votes are made less meaningful. Such as one year, the 7 smallest states, with a combined population of 3,119,000 populous, had the same voting power as the state of Florida, which had a population of 9,614,000. 21 Electoral Votes, each. However, Electoral supporters might argue that Florida is one state, and its 21 Electoral voters will all go the same way-with the popular vote of the state, while those others are obviously 7 states, with 3 voters each, might not all go the same way.
I also read about a bunch of alternatives for the Electoral College. The one that appeals to me the most is the Popular Vote Bonus method, in which the winner of the popular vote would get the electoral votes they earned, plus half again the electoral votes of their most populated state (Half of California, Gore's biggest state, would have given him 27 electoral votes, I think, and the win.)
I don't know. This issue definitely isn't an easy one. It's also late, I'm tired, and I have to go to school in the morning, and my mind is a little clouded right now, so... please give me your opinions. Maybe someone else can see things more clearly than I can right now. I really don't have a strong opinion either way, however.
Wuv, Yer Mom