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Once AGAIN: (a) this is an initiative by states, not political parties, and (b) it's at least twelve years old, so has nothing to do with anyone having "lost". Nor does it have to do with any kind of "policies" outside of how the Electrical College works.
Agree, but it seems that CT is jumping on the anti Trump bandwagon. The Electoral College exists for a good reason.
Oh it exists for a couple of reasons, which have already been pointed out. But none of those reasons exist any more. One of them (the big one) was Slave Power. And the main reason it was preferred over the idea of direct popular election as Madison favoured was that different states had different laws as to who could vote. None of that is true today; both Slavery and the requirement to be white, and/or be male and/or own property, no longer exist.
Nor, for that matter, does any reason to hold the election on a Tuesday.
Slave Power? Christ sake, do you give any thought to these things or do they just fall out of your mouth?
The Reason for the Electoral College - FactCheck.org
Yes, Slave Power. See post 587 where this was all laid out in detail already. There, to your eternal consternation, you'll find I not only researched all this but spelled it out. With links. This morning. And not for the first time one might add.
Four of the first five POTUSes, five of the first seven, and in fact every pre-Civil War President with the exceptions of Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, van Buren and the Adamses, were slave owners from the South, and most of them (7 of 9) from Virginia -- the largest EV state that derived the most benefit from the EC.
Slave Power was a sore point of contention in the first half of the 18th Century, and the EC ensured it would be considerable. It was in fact one of the first and most direct target of that newfangled political party, the Republicans.
Democrats just don't want to admit they lost, and face the fact that the Liberal/Progressive, divisive policies DON'T WORK. We are better than that.
Once AGAIN: (a) this is an initiative by states, not political parties, and (b) it's at least twelve years old, so has nothing to do with anyone having "lost". Nor does it have to do with any kind of "policies" outside of how the Electrical College works.
It's a bad idea for blue states to latch on to this policy, it does nothing to help their cause. Dumb idea unless every state jumps onto the idea. I live in a deep blue state, no matter the turnout in Presidential elections the Democrat has won since Reagan, so it might bring out more Republicans to vote because the 11 states that work off the popular vote.
No, it's called a Republic. A system where everything goes to the will of the majority is Mob rule.
They are doing it in a way that is probably Unconstitutional via Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1.
The court system is the mechanism for preventing a dictatorship of the majority. Not the electoral college.
The electoral college was created to prevent someone who was absolutely unfit to become President from becoming President. This past election the electoral college proved to be an absolute failure in that regard.
The electoral college was not created for the purpose of stopping majority rule.
So according to your idea of republicanism, the federal government has failed to adhere to Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1 since they've allowed states to elect officails according to the popular majority. Is that correct?
Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1 does not apply at all to federal elections.
Just because you hate a person the Electoral College failed? That is pretty elitist lefty BS.
That's what this guy was doing when the candy he hated won the election........
"Elitist"? Definitely. "Lefty"? Eh, not so much.
Not sure what the "candy" is, nor is it relevant to me. Never said Trump wasn't an elitist, however Trump is a lefty, that is one reason I wouldn't vote for him. He had been a lefty for awhile and did a miracle conversion for the campaign.
A "candy" is short for "candidate". The context should make that obvious.
Rump is in no way a "lefty". In order to be either a "lefty" or a "righty" one would first have to have principles and some kind of coherent "thought". If he had any actual policies, then he wouldn't have got to where he is based on cheap emotional hot-button con artistry. "Conversion"? Poster please. Rump made no 'conversion' or changes at all -- he simply ran as what he's always been ----- a self-absorbed asshole.
And an uninformed one at that -- the twits above were sent when he was under the impression that Romney had won the EC but lost the election. Which is ironic, since four years later that's exactly what Rump did, but his reaction to the idea ---- THERE is your 'conversion'. Also known as naked hypocrisy.
As I said --- a self-absorbed asshole. With double standards.
"Corrupt"?...
This might give the Corrupt Democratic Party permanent control.
With permanent control the Corrupt Democrats will be able ignore the laws and the constitution and nobody could stop them. What do you think will happen to America if the Democrats are undefeatable?
The court system is the mechanism for preventing a dictatorship of the majority. Not the electoral college.
The electoral college was created to prevent someone who was absolutely unfit to become President from becoming President. This past election the electoral college proved to be an absolute failure in that regard.
The electoral college was not created for the purpose of stopping majority rule.
So according to your idea of republicanism, the federal government has failed to adhere to Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1 since they've allowed states to elect officails according to the popular majority. Is that correct?
Article 4, Section 4, Clause 1 does not apply at all to federal elections.
Just because you hate a person the Electoral College failed? That is pretty elitist lefty BS.
That's what this guy was doing when the candy he hated won the election........
"Elitist"? Definitely. "Lefty"? Eh, not so much.
Not sure what the "candy" is, nor is it relevant to me. Never said Trump wasn't an elitist, however Trump is a lefty, that is one reason I wouldn't vote for him. He had been a lefty for awhile and did a miracle conversion for the campaign.
A "candy" is short for "candidate". The context should make that obvious.
Rump is in no way a "lefty". In order to be either a "lefty" or a "righty" one would first have to have principles and some kind of coherent "thought". If he had any actual policies, then he wouldn't have got to where he is based on cheap emotional hot-button con artistry. "Conversion"? Poster please. Rump made no 'conversion' or changes at all -- he simply ran as what he's always been ----- a self-absorbed asshole.
And an uninformed one at that -- the twits above were sent when he was under the impression that Romney had won the EC but lost the election. Which is ironic, since four years later that's exactly what Rump did, but his reaction to the idea ---- THERE is your 'conversion'. Also known as naked hypocrisy.
As I said --- a self-absorbed asshole. With double standards.
If you are too lazy to spell a word don’t get pissed when asked what the hell you are trying to say. Too many nuts to try to decipher what some asshole is trying to say.
Secondly lefty’s and righty’s have no moral compass and go with the flavor of the day. Liberals and conservatives are principled and thought.
So Trump is a lefty or righty depending on the day much like many on this board. I know very few conservatives or liberals, they are dying off and now we are left with nuts on the left and right leading, that’s how we got Trump and Clinton as candidates.
Trump did change he shifts with the wind.
Once AGAIN: (a) this is an initiative by states, not political parties, and (b) it's at least twelve years old, so has nothing to do with anyone having "lost". Nor does it have to do with any kind of "policies" outside of how the Electrical College works.
Agree, but it seems that CT is jumping on the anti Trump bandwagon. The Electoral College exists for a good reason.
Oh it exists for a couple of reasons, which have already been pointed out. But none of those reasons exist any more. One of them (the big one) was Slave Power. And the main reason it was preferred over the idea of direct popular election as Madison favoured was that different states had different laws as to who could vote. None of that is true today; both Slavery and the requirement to be white, and/or be male and/or own property, no longer exist.
Nor, for that matter, does any reason to hold the election on a Tuesday.
Slave Power? Christ sake, do you give any thought to these things or do they just fall out of your mouth?
The Reason for the Electoral College - FactCheck.org
Yes, Slave Power. See post 587 where this was all laid out in detail already. There, to your eternal consternation, you'll find I not only researched all this but spelled it out. With links. This morning. And not for the first time one might add.
Four of the first five POTUSes, five of the first seven, and in fact every pre-Civil War President with the exceptions of Buchanan, Pierce, Fillmore, van Buren and the Adamses, were slave owners from the South, and most of them (7 of 9) from Virginia -- the largest EV state that derived the most benefit from the EC.
Slave Power was a sore point of contention in the first half of the 18th Century, and the EC ensured it would be considerable. It was in fact one of the first and most direct target of that newfangled political party, the Republicans.
"I researched this" = I found someone on the Internet who agrees with me.
Show us where the discussion about the Electoral College among the Founding Fathers was about slavery, rather than large versus small populations in re: representation, and THAT will be researched proof. Anything else is just "How can I jam my slavery hobby horse into THIS conversation?"
Just because you hate a person the Electoral College failed? That is pretty elitist lefty BS.
That's what this guy was doing when the candy he hated won the election........
"Elitist"? Definitely. "Lefty"? Eh, not so much.
Not sure what the "candy" is, nor is it relevant to me. Never said Trump wasn't an elitist, however Trump is a lefty, that is one reason I wouldn't vote for him. He had been a lefty for awhile and did a miracle conversion for the campaign.
A "candy" is short for "candidate". The context should make that obvious.
Rump is in no way a "lefty". In order to be either a "lefty" or a "righty" one would first have to have principles and some kind of coherent "thought". If he had any actual policies, then he wouldn't have got to where he is based on cheap emotional hot-button con artistry. "Conversion"? Poster please. Rump made no 'conversion' or changes at all -- he simply ran as what he's always been ----- a self-absorbed asshole.
And an uninformed one at that -- the twits above were sent when he was under the impression that Romney had won the EC but lost the election. Which is ironic, since four years later that's exactly what Rump did, but his reaction to the idea ---- THERE is your 'conversion'. Also known as naked hypocrisy.
As I said --- a self-absorbed asshole. With double standards.
If you are too lazy to spell a word don’t get pissed when asked what the hell you are trying to say. Too many nuts to try to decipher what some asshole is trying to say.
Hey, you're the only wag who has claimed not to have figured it out, plus you were just told. If you're still not getting it, see your doctor
Secondly lefty’s and righty’s have no moral compass and go with the flavor of the day. Liberals and conservatives are principled and thought.
"Are principled and thought".... alllll righty then. English much? Wherever you were going with this, it doesn't seem to have a thing to do with Rump.
So Trump is a lefty or righty depending on the day much like many on this board. I know very few conservatives or liberals, they are dying off and now we are left with nuts on the left and right leading, that’s how we got Trump and Clinton as candidates.
Trump did change he shifts with the wind.
And he always has, because his only interest is Numero Uno. And again I already noted this.
The Electoral College takes away your right to vote. If you voted for the loser in your state, that vote did not count
This way, your vote counts towards the candidate of your choice regardless of how others in your state voted
By that logic any vote for the loser in an election doesn't count.
Try again.
Sorry, that doesn't work. It would work if voters were voting for President of the State. But they're not. If a state has an apportionment of, say, 13 EVs, and let's say the pop vote is close (so-called "battleground state") but in the end Clinton prevails, then by legitimate representative standards Clinton should get 7 and Rump 6. But the way it actually works Clinton got 13 and Rump got (Rudy Giuliani voice) ZEEERO. What then was the point of anyone going out to vote for Rump? It was a complete waste of time. Suppose you went out for groceries, paid for your purchases --- and then left the bags in the store. What was the point?
And one of the detriments of this corrupt system is that many of us can see how this works and the futility thereof, and don't bother to vote at all, which is why we have one of the worst election day participation rates in the world. Because what's the point?
The reason to go out is get those 13 votes for Trump.
Again, the real "fair" way to do it and still keep the flavor of the EC is to give each state's 2 Senate based EV's based on statewide vote, and the others based on Congressional districts.
NY and CA will never go for that because it means Republicans can win a share of their EV total, which they cannot do now!
Except they already did.
>> (Myth) 1. "The framers created the electoral college to protect small states"-- already, and repeatedly, noted:
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president. --- Five Myths About the Electoral College
Anyone who's ever wondered at the curious "coincidence" of Presidents repeatedly hailing from Virginia need wonder no more. Everything happens for a reason.
- Washington --Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jefferson ------Virginia (slaveholder)
- Madison ------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Monroe -------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jackson ------- Tennessee (slaveholder)
- Harrison (W)- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Taylor ---------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Tyler ------------ Virginia (slaveholder)
- Polk ------------ Tennessee (slaveholder)
-- the remaining POTUSES pre-Civil War being all Northern non-slaveholders (Adamses, van Buren, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan) who were all limited to a single term.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>> Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.
At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.<< --- The Troubling Reason the Electoral College exists
>> (Myth) 1. "The framers created the electoral college to protect small states"-- already, and repeatedly, noted:
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president. --- Five Myths About the Electoral College
Anyone who's ever wondered at the curious "coincidence" of Presidents repeatedly hailing from Virginia need wonder no more. Everything happens for a reason.
- Washington --Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jefferson ------Virginia (slaveholder)
- Madison ------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Monroe -------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jackson ------- Tennessee (slaveholder)
- Harrison (W)- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Taylor ---------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Tyler ------------ Virginia (slaveholder)
- Polk ------------ Tennessee (slaveholder)
-- the remaining POTUSES pre-Civil War being all Northern non-slaveholders (Adamses, van Buren, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan) who were all limited to a single term.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>> Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.
At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.<< --- The Troubling Reason the Electoral College exists
Interesting theory, however it’s more propaganda, the reasons aren’t as nefarious as the opinion article claims. It seems to fit with the left wing agenda. It seems it the left doesn’t like a law, a statue or building, they attach a racist slant. Divide and conquer.
>> (Myth) 1. "The framers created the electoral college to protect small states"-- already, and repeatedly, noted:
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president. --- Five Myths About the Electoral College
Anyone who's ever wondered at the curious "coincidence" of Presidents repeatedly hailing from Virginia need wonder no more. Everything happens for a reason.
- Washington --Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jefferson ------Virginia (slaveholder)
- Madison ------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Monroe -------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jackson ------- Tennessee (slaveholder)
- Harrison (W)- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Taylor ---------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Tyler ------------ Virginia (slaveholder)
- Polk ------------ Tennessee (slaveholder)
-- the remaining POTUSES pre-Civil War being all Northern non-slaveholders (Adamses, van Buren, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan) who were all limited to a single term.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>> Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.
At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.<< --- The Troubling Reason the Electoral College exists
Interesting theory, however it’s more propaganda, the reasons aren’t as nefarious as the opinion article claims. It seems to fit with the left wing agenda. It seems it the left doesn’t like a law, a statue or building, they attach a racist slant. Divide and conquer.
It's simple recorded history. You can read the contemporary account here if you like, but I'm not responsible for eyestrain. But that's why I quote five different sources -- other historians have already donated their eyes.
The background to all this is that the Civil War didn't start in 1861 -- it started at the Constitutional Convention. And really before that when two different and incompatible economy systems were set up north and south of each other. It might have worked, or at least worked another way, had the two not tried to unite without settling their differences. And the Electoral College is one of the historical vestiges still left from it, much like coming across an old sign in rural Alabama reading "Colored waiting room". You'd never know this background from the watered-down history textbooks approved for sanitized schools where America has no faults but it's right there for anyone who doesn't trust the school board sanitizers who censor those narratives.
As noted before there are exactly two countries in the world that purport to hold a popular vote for head of state but then make the actual choice by a proxy system; one is the United States and the other is Pakistan. I'm not sure Pakistan has the same background behind it.
Anyway this is all part of explaining why the EC exists --- to address disparities which have long since ceased to exist, including Slave Power, including wildly varying voter enfranchisement, including far-flung areas outside of easy communication. None of those conditions exist any more --- yet the EC hangs on with no rational argument left to prop it up. More directly as practiced it continues to polarize and divide the country just as Madison predicted it would.
>> (Myth) 1. "The framers created the electoral college to protect small states"-- already, and repeatedly, noted:
The delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention had a variety of reasons for settling on the electoral college format, but protecting smaller states was not among them. Some delegates feared direct democracy, but that was only one factor in the debate.
Remember what the country looked like in 1787: The important division was between states that relied on slavery and those that didn’t, not between large and small states. A direct election for president did not sit well with most delegates from the slave states, which had large populations but far fewer eligible voters. They gravitated toward the electoral college as a compromise because it was based on population. The convention had agreed to count each slave as three-fifths of a person for the purpose of calculating each state’s allotment of seats in Congress. For Virginia, which had the largest population among the original 13 states, that meant more clout in choosing the president. --- Five Myths About the Electoral College
Anyone who's ever wondered at the curious "coincidence" of Presidents repeatedly hailing from Virginia need wonder no more. Everything happens for a reason.
- Washington --Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jefferson ------Virginia (slaveholder)
- Madison ------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Monroe -------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Jackson ------- Tennessee (slaveholder)
- Harrison (W)- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Taylor ---------- Virginia (slaveholder)
- Tyler ------------ Virginia (slaveholder)
- Polk ------------ Tennessee (slaveholder)
-- the remaining POTUSES pre-Civil War being all Northern non-slaveholders (Adamses, van Buren, Fillmore, Pierce and Buchanan) who were all limited to a single term.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
>> Standard civics-class accounts of the Electoral College rarely mention the real demon dooming direct national election in 1787 and 1803: slavery.
At the Philadelphia convention, the visionary Pennsylvanian James Wilson proposed direct national election of the president. But the savvy Virginian James Madison responded that such a system would prove unacceptable to the South: “The right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.” In other words, in a direct election system, the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote. But the Electoral College—a prototype of which Madison proposed in this same speech—instead let each southern state count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount, in computing its share of the overall count.
Virginia emerged as the big winner—the California of the Founding era—with 12 out of a total of 91 electoral votes allocated by the Philadelphia Constitution, more than a quarter of the 46 needed to win an election in the first round. After the 1800 census, Wilson’s free state of Pennsylvania had 10% more free persons than Virginia, but got 20% fewer electoral votes. Perversely, the more slaves Virginia (or any other slave state) bought or bred, the more electoral votes it would receive. Were a slave state to free any blacks who then moved North, the state could actually lose electoral votes.
If the system’s pro-slavery tilt was not overwhelmingly obvious when the Constitution was ratified, it quickly became so. For 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years, a white slaveholding Virginian occupied the presidency.
Southerner Thomas Jefferson, for example, won the election of 1800-01 against Northerner John Adams in a race where the slavery-skew of the electoral college was the decisive margin of victory: without the extra electoral college votes generated by slavery, the mostly southern states that supported Jefferson would not have sufficed to give him a majority. As pointed observers remarked at the time, Thomas Jefferson metaphorically rode into the executive mansion on the backs of slaves.
The 1796 contest between Adams and Jefferson had featured an even sharper division between northern states and southern states. Thus, at the time the Twelfth Amendment tinkered with the Electoral College system rather than tossing it, the system’s pro-slavery bias was hardly a secret. Indeed, in the floor debate over the amendment in late 1803, Massachusetts Congressman Samuel Thatcher complained that “The representation of slaves adds thirteen members to this House in the present Congress, and eighteen Electors of President and Vice President at the next election.” But Thatcher’s complaint went unredressed. Once again, the North caved to the South by refusing to insist on direct national election.<< --- The Troubling Reason the Electoral College exists
Interesting theory, however it’s more propaganda, the reasons aren’t as nefarious as the opinion article claims. It seems to fit with the left wing agenda. It seems it the left doesn’t like a law, a statue or building, they attach a racist slant. Divide and conquer.
It's simple recorded history. You can read the contemporary account here if you like, but I'm not responsible for eyestrain. But that's why I quote five different sources -- other historians have already donated their eyes.
The background to all this is that the Civil War didn't start in 1861 -- it started at the Constitutional Convention. And really before that when two different and incompatible economy systems were set up north and south of each other. It might have worked, or at least worked another way, had the two not tried to unite without settling their differences. And the Electoral College is one of the historical vestiges still left from it, much like coming across an old sign in rural Alabama reading "Colored waiting room". You'd never know this background from the watered-down history textbooks approved for sanitized schools where America has no faults but it's right there for anyone who doesn't trust the school board sanitizers who censor those narratives.
As noted before there are exactly two countries in the world that purport to hold a popular vote for head of state but then make the actual choice by a proxy system; one is the United States and the other is Pakistan. I'm not sure Pakistan has the same background behind it.
Anyway this is all part of explaining why the EC exists --- to address disparities which have long since ceased to exist, including Slave Power, including wildly varying voter enfranchisement, including far-flung areas outside of easy communication. None of those conditions exist any more --- yet the EC hangs on with no rational argument left to prop it up. More directly as practiced it continues to polarize and divide the country just as Madison predicted it would.
Thanks for the opinion, I don’t share it, however we are all free to form our own opinions based on the information we choose to believe.
Right now the way it stands the Electoral College is what we go by, if these states want to pledge their votes to the populace winner they are free to do so. States have rights and it’s all good if they want to exercise their rights.
That's what will happen. Republican states will simply ignore voters and give all delegates to whomever they please.
We'd note this as the official end of democracy. What comes after would be ugly. Again I think it past time to split the US into 2-4 smaller countries. Conservatives have gotten to a point they will cheat or simply ignore elections now so let them go form their new Hillbillies-R-Us-Land. Their states combined won't amount to much of an economy and they'll be happy all making minimum wage of $7.50/hr. They can also force women to have children which they are dying to do. But the point is they'd have their own shithole to fuckup as they see fit. No more blaming anyone else for their failures.
The blue states combined have a huge economy and are really the engine that drives the American economy so breaking off into a smaller country will in fact mean that economy is concentrated and benefits a much smaller but much more productive populace.
It's time isn't it folks? We had a good run, let's move on and split the country up before cons really lose their shit and demand to impose their lifestyle on everyone else permanently.
Connecticut To Give Its Electoral College Votes To National Popular Vote Victor
Connecticut voted to give its Electoral College Votes to the national popular vote victor. The state Senate voted 21-14 on Saturday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which includes 10 states and the District of Columbia. The state House passed the measure last week, 77 to 73. California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia have already signed the accord.
This might give the Corrupt Democratic Party permanent control.
With permanent control the Corrupt Democrats will be able ignore the laws and the constitution and nobody could stop them. What do you think will happen to America if the Democrats are undefeatable?
Connecticut To Give Its Electoral College Votes To National Popular Vote Victor
Connecticut voted to give its Electoral College Votes to the national popular vote victor. The state Senate voted 21-14 on Saturday to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which includes 10 states and the District of Columbia. The state House passed the measure last week, 77 to 73. California, Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and the District of Columbia have already signed the accord.
This might give the Corrupt Democratic Party permanent control.
With permanent control the Corrupt Democrats will be able ignore the laws and the constitution and nobody could stop them. What do you think will happen to America if the Democrats are undefeatable?
There is no one in our History that is more LAWLESS than President Trump....and there never will be anyone who could be as lawless as the man of lawlessness you put in power. He has broken near every rule of ethics, of protocol, of rules, of laws and of the constitution.... in just a little over a year in office.... and crazy you, applauds him!
who won the state's popular vote in the last election? Clinton.
who won the nation's popular vote? Clinton
so exactly how does this new measure really change that?
