Why can't liberals comprehend this is the United States of America??

[Syriusly]

We are a nation of 50 states bigger than Europe
.

I don't know any.

Sorry didn't mean to change your quote accident delete




Again look at all these threads on liberals that want mob rules and the end to EC.


.

So identify who doesn't know this is the United States.

Which ones want mob rule.

And are you saying that Donald Trump is a liberal?

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

8:45 PM - 6 Nov 2012

Another one who can't read Trump what he says and what he thinks..s

How do you read what Trump thinks?

See I think Trump tweets exactly what he thinks- and 4 years ago he was apparently just another 'liberal' calling for the end of the electoral college.

Now of course Trump thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Perhaps calling for the end of the Electoral college is not exactly just a liberal thing- but has been something talked about by people on both sides of the side for the last 50 years.

 

[Wyatt earp]

We are a nation of 50 states bigger than Europe
.

I don't know any.

Sorry didn't mean to change your quote accident delete




Again look at all these threads on liberals that want mob rules and the end to EC.


.

So identify who doesn't know this is the United States.

Which ones want mob rule.

And are you saying that Donald Trump is a liberal?

Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.

8:45 PM - 6 Nov 2012

Another one who can't read Trump what he says and what he thinks..s

How do you read what Trump thinks?

See I think Trump tweets exactly what he thinks- and 4 years ago he was apparently just another 'liberal' calling for the end of the electoral college.

Now of course Trump thinks it is the best thing since sliced bread.

Perhaps calling for the end of the Electoral college is not exactly just a liberal thing- but has been something talked about by people on both sides of the side for the last 50 years.

I am really good at reading people, in real life I am super quiet guy..

I watch and listen unless you piss me off about safety or QC at work then I raise hell

I love news and politics.. I read 3 news papers a day since I was 7 years old what like 43 years ago Chicago sun times, Chicago tribune the Daily hearld..
Latter on USA today.. The wall street journal.. And so many tabloids top to bottom and so many magizenes.. (spl? )

I loved to read..

 

[Care4all]

Bull. It's no different than being in the minority in PV. You voted, you lost

NOPE....NOT AT ALL IS IT LIKE THE PRIMARY VOTE in he Democratic primary, the delegate votes go to the candidates PROPORTIONALLY....

The super delegates are a different story, they are like the Senator given Electors where they do not represent a voting district, but the overall State.

You haven't made any point. States decide how to allocate their EVs. You live in a State, you vote, they are allocated by it's rules. Don't like it, suck it. But to say your vote didn't count because you lost is just eight year old. Especially after the election.

Let's be honest, this has nothing to do with your heartache over the contrived issue that losing a vote means your vote didn't count. You want tyranny of the majority so you can ram more down everyone's throats. That's why you like PV. I oppose tyranny of the majority and believe individuals should have rights you don't want us to have so I like the EV. Unfortunately for you, the founders set it up my way. But cut the stupid shit that voting according to the rules of your State and losing is equivalent to losing your vote

He still can't figure out

Germany is not like Italy

Kentucky is not like New York City..

Ya know at one time someone suggested a united States of Europe because it worked so well here..

Huh? What you talkin about Willis?

I am not a he, I'm a she....

And I know the difference between Italy and Germany....I LIVED in Italy for two and a half years and I lived in Germany for six months.... So you must be talking about someone else?

Sorry dude I was thinking about that guy praising California..

That started to get on my nerves

My apologies

Sorry "Dudette", not dude!!! I am woman, I'm invincible!!!!

 

[kaz]

You haven't made any point. States decide how to allocate their EVs. You live in a State, you vote, they are allocated by it's rules. Don't like it, suck it. But to say your vote didn't count because you lost is just eight year old. Especially after the election.

Let's be honest, this has nothing to do with your heartache over the contrived issue that losing a vote means your vote didn't count. You want tyranny of the majority so you can ram more down everyone's throats. That's why you like PV. I oppose tyranny of the majority and believe individuals should have rights you don't want us to have so I like the EV. Unfortunately for you, the founders set it up my way. But cut the stupid shit that voting according to the rules of your State and losing is equivalent to losing your vote

1. under the present rules, Trump won this election and will be President.

2, I AM NOT ARGUING AGAINST HIS WIN....

3. you are an ignorant idiot, or just like to play one on the internet

I am advocating changing the electoral process BACK TO THE WAY our founding fathers INTENDED IT TO WORK.... the people get represented, AND the States get represented, just like the House and the Senate.

The small states get MORE representation, by getting 2 senators/2 electors, while the largest states out there STILL only get 2 senators/2 electors.... as with congress, this gives small states more power than they deserve according to their population....

The way States CHANGED their electoral process over the years took away the power of the electors given to represent the people in the federal election, and gave it ALL to the power of the State....they did this, to secure their 2 party gig... where a third party candidate could near NEVER recieve even a single Elector vote.....so that we can only have a Democratic or Republican President.

OUR FOUNDERS DID NOT WANT THIS COLLUSION in fact this is WHY rgwy created ELECTORS instead of giving it to the House and Senate, where they felt that those in office would collude with each other to simply vote for who was in their Party....instead they chose electors to represent the congressmen, and their congressional districts and 2 electors representing our state senators, and these electors could NOT be people in political party government positions, and each elector vote was to count individually....

NOT A WINNER TAKE ALL.

I'm advocating in keeping the electoral college, but having elector votes go to the candidate that won the elector's congressional voting district and the 2 electors representing the senators going to the stare's majority winner.

the 2 electors representing senators gives the small states the advantage the founders created.

look at a red blue map, there are a sea of red states and just a handfull of blue....the 2 senatorial electors in each of those red states goes to the R regardless of state population....


so let's say R's win 35 states for their candidate, and D's only win 15 states, but the popular vote was near equal for both candidates and the E V vote tied, due to blue states being states with heavily populated cities....

but the R candidate gets those 2 senatorial electors for 35 states won so 70 more electors, and the D candidate only gets 30 EV votes for their 15 state win...the R candidates gets 40 more electorial votes in the final tally giving the win to R's.... THIS IS THE ADVANTAGE OUR FOUNDERS GAVE to smaller states...

NOT THE BASTARDIZED winner takes all EV votes

You're an idiot or you just like playing one on message boards. I keep responding to your ridiculous point that your vote somehow didn't count because you lost when you voted according to the rules of your State. You say all this and never responded to the point we were discussing.

Funny how when we're following the rules set up by the founders we aren't following what they wanted. Can you back that up with more than your own claims of what they wanted?

They clearly in everything I've read left it up to the States how to allocate electors. Show what you're basing it on that they actually wanted to dictate to States how to do it

i;m advocating each State change the rules back to where they represent our founder's intent.

1) OK, assuming that means you're dropping the stupid shit that your vote didn't count when you voted according to the rules of your State then we're good on that point

2) I asked you how you know that was their intent since we are following their rules and everything I've read just says they wanted the States to decide how to allocate their electors

I read it when searching HISTORY of presidential race electors, and Hamilton and Madison among a few others who created the system and why they created it, verses letting actual house and Senate members voting.

Still no links? Of course, that's what happens when you make your shit up. The founding fathers left it up to the States how to allocate their electors. You're still zero for everything. Link, wench. Where did the FFs say States were supposed to allocate proportionately. Your claim, back it up

 

[kaz]

NOPE....NOT AT ALL IS IT LIKE THE PRIMARY VOTE in he Democratic primary, the delegate votes go to the candidates PROPORTIONALLY....

The super delegates are a different story, they are like the Senator given Electors where they do not represent a voting district, but the overall State.

You haven't made any point. States decide how to allocate their EVs. You live in a State, you vote, they are allocated by it's rules. Don't like it, suck it. But to say your vote didn't count because you lost is just eight year old. Especially after the election.

Let's be honest, this has nothing to do with your heartache over the contrived issue that losing a vote means your vote didn't count. You want tyranny of the majority so you can ram more down everyone's throats. That's why you like PV. I oppose tyranny of the majority and believe individuals should have rights you don't want us to have so I like the EV. Unfortunately for you, the founders set it up my way. But cut the stupid shit that voting according to the rules of your State and losing is equivalent to losing your vote

He still can't figure out

Germany is not like Italy

Kentucky is not like New York City..

Ya know at one time someone suggested a united States of Europe because it worked so well here..

Huh? What you talkin about Willis?

I am not a he, I'm a she....

And I know the difference between Italy and Germany....I LIVED in Italy for two and a half years and I lived in Germany for six months.... So you must be talking about someone else?

Sorry dude I was thinking about that guy praising California..

That started to get on my nerves

My apologies

Sorry "Dudette", not dude!!! I am woman, I'm invincible!!!!

If you're "invincible" then why are you begging for government scraps?

 

[NYcarbineer]

We are a nation of 50 states bigger than Europe


Is Spain the same as Italy ?

Is Great Britain the same as Germany?


Hence the name United States of America

Not the United State of California



What's next does the liberals want to get rid of the Senate that's supposed to protect each state evenly?



The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, afederal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 1]Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America betweenCanada and Mexico.

The charm of states rights ended in 1861, or thereabouts.

Just seen this post I thought it was 1865? Or was it 1864 off the top of my head.

The armed rebellion by the southern states began in 1861.

 

[Wyatt earp]

We are a nation of 50 states bigger than Europe


Is Spain the same as Italy ?

Is Great Britain the same as Germany?


Hence the name United States of America

Not the United State of California



What's next does the liberals want to get rid of the Senate that's supposed to protect each state evenly?



The United States of America (USA), commonly referred to as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a federal republic composed of 50 states, afederal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions.[fn 1]Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America betweenCanada and Mexico.

The charm of states rights ended in 1861, or thereabouts.

Just seen this post I thought it was 1865? Or was it 1864 off the top of my head.

The armed rebellion by the southern states began in 1861.

I want the year it ended and don't feel like googling it
I love playing with my coworkers what time is it is ?I look at the sun.. And how hungry I am.. I am real good at guessing that to a few minutes.. Or what time we get off

 

[Care4all]

1. under the present rules, Trump won this election and will be President.

2, I AM NOT ARGUING AGAINST HIS WIN....

3. you are an ignorant idiot, or just like to play one on the internet

I am advocating changing the electoral process BACK TO THE WAY our founding fathers INTENDED IT TO WORK.... the people get represented, AND the States get represented, just like the House and the Senate.

The small states get MORE representation, by getting 2 senators/2 electors, while the largest states out there STILL only get 2 senators/2 electors.... as with congress, this gives small states more power than they deserve according to their population....

The way States CHANGED their electoral process over the years took away the power of the electors given to represent the people in the federal election, and gave it ALL to the power of the State....they did this, to secure their 2 party gig... where a third party candidate could near NEVER recieve even a single Elector vote.....so that we can only have a Democratic or Republican President.

OUR FOUNDERS DID NOT WANT THIS COLLUSION in fact this is WHY rgwy created ELECTORS instead of giving it to the House and Senate, where they felt that those in office would collude with each other to simply vote for who was in their Party....instead they chose electors to represent the congressmen, and their congressional districts and 2 electors representing our state senators, and these electors could NOT be people in political party government positions, and each elector vote was to count individually....

NOT A WINNER TAKE ALL.

I'm advocating in keeping the electoral college, but having elector votes go to the candidate that won the elector's congressional voting district and the 2 electors representing the senators going to the stare's majority winner.

the 2 electors representing senators gives the small states the advantage the founders created.

look at a red blue map, there are a sea of red states and just a handfull of blue....the 2 senatorial electors in each of those red states goes to the R regardless of state population....


so let's say R's win 35 states for their candidate, and D's only win 15 states, but the popular vote was near equal for both candidates and the E V vote tied, due to blue states being states with heavily populated cities....

but the R candidate gets those 2 senatorial electors for 35 states won so 70 more electors, and the D candidate only gets 30 EV votes for their 15 state win...the R candidates gets 40 more electorial votes in the final tally giving the win to R's.... THIS IS THE ADVANTAGE OUR FOUNDERS GAVE to smaller states...

NOT THE BASTARDIZED winner takes all EV votes

You're an idiot or you just like playing one on message boards. I keep responding to your ridiculous point that your vote somehow didn't count because you lost when you voted according to the rules of your State. You say all this and never responded to the point we were discussing.

Funny how when we're following the rules set up by the founders we aren't following what they wanted. Can you back that up with more than your own claims of what they wanted?

They clearly in everything I've read left it up to the States how to allocate electors. Show what you're basing it on that they actually wanted to dictate to States how to do it

i;m advocating each State change the rules back to where they represent our founder's intent.

1) OK, assuming that means you're dropping the stupid shit that your vote didn't count when you voted according to the rules of your State then we're good on that point

2) I asked you how you know that was their intent since we are following their rules and everything I've read just says they wanted the States to decide how to allocate their electors

I read it when searching HISTORY of presidential race electors, and Hamilton and Madison among a few others who created the system and why they created it, verses letting actual house and Senate members voting.

Still no links? Of course, that's what happens when you make your shit up. The founding fathers left it up to the States how to allocate their electors. You're still zero for everything. Link, wench. Where did the FFs say States were supposed to allocate proportionately. Your claim, back it up

here ya go with just one link....it's a long read, much more at the link...I doubt you'll read it all or even try to understand it...

The Electoral College - Origin and History

The Electoral College

Excerpt from an original document located at Jackson County, MO Election Board

by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

• was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government
  
• contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)
  
• believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and
  
• felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.").

How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other?


Origins of the Electoral College
The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president.

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.


The First Design
In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution):

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.
  
• The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government.
  
• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
  
• Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.
  
• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice.

• The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results.
  
• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.
  
• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns

while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later.


The Second Design
The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as Edmund Burke and James Madison.

One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor - but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804.

To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for "favorite sons", either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors.

 

[Wyatt earp]

You're an idiot or you just like playing one on message boards. I keep responding to your ridiculous point that your vote somehow didn't count because you lost when you voted according to the rules of your State. You say all this and never responded to the point we were discussing.

Funny how when we're following the rules set up by the founders we aren't following what they wanted. Can you back that up with more than your own claims of what they wanted?

They clearly in everything I've read left it up to the States how to allocate electors. Show what you're basing it on that they actually wanted to dictate to States how to do it

i;m advocating each State change the rules back to where they represent our founder's intent.

1) OK, assuming that means you're dropping the stupid shit that your vote didn't count when you voted according to the rules of your State then we're good on that point

2) I asked you how you know that was their intent since we are following their rules and everything I've read just says they wanted the States to decide how to allocate their electors

I read it when searching HISTORY of presidential race electors, and Hamilton and Madison among a few others who created the system and why they created it, verses letting actual house and Senate members voting.

Still no links? Of course, that's what happens when you make your shit up. The founding fathers left it up to the States how to allocate their electors. You're still zero for everything. Link, wench. Where did the FFs say States were supposed to allocate proportionately. Your claim, back it up

here ya go with just one link....it's a long read, much more at the link...I doubt you'll read it all or even try to understand it...

The Electoral College - Origin and History

The Electoral College

Excerpt from an original document located at Jackson County, MO Election Board

by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

• was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government
  
• contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)
  
• believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and
  
• felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.").

How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other?


Origins of the Electoral College
The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president.

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.


The First Design
In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution):

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.
  
• The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government.
  
• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
  
• Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.
  
• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice.

• The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results.
  
• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.
  
• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns

while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later.


The Second Design
The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as Edmund Burke and James Madison.

One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor - but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804.

To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for "favorite sons", either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors.

Stop the racist crap you know you're out of your league in my topic.. I don't even have to read it to know what you are thinking

 

[Care4all]

i;m advocating each State change the rules back to where they represent our founder's intent.

1) OK, assuming that means you're dropping the stupid shit that your vote didn't count when you voted according to the rules of your State then we're good on that point

2) I asked you how you know that was their intent since we are following their rules and everything I've read just says they wanted the States to decide how to allocate their electors

I read it when searching HISTORY of presidential race electors, and Hamilton and Madison among a few others who created the system and why they created it, verses letting actual house and Senate members voting.

Still no links? Of course, that's what happens when you make your shit up. The founding fathers left it up to the States how to allocate their electors. You're still zero for everything. Link, wench. Where did the FFs say States were supposed to allocate proportionately. Your claim, back it up

here ya go with just one link....it's a long read, much more at the link...I doubt you'll read it all or even try to understand it...

The Electoral College - Origin and History

The Electoral College

Excerpt from an original document located at Jackson County, MO Election Board

by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

• was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government
  
• contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)
  
• believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and
  
• felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.").

How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other?


Origins of the Electoral College
The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president.

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.


The First Design
In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution):

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.
  
• The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government.
  
• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
  
• Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.
  
• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice.

• The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results.
  
• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.
  
• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns

while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later.


The Second Design
The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as Edmund Burke and James Madison.

One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor - but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804.

To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for "favorite sons", either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors.

Stop the racist crap you know you're out of your league in my topic.. I don't even have to read it to know what you are thinking

have you and your firewater bottle decided to become 'kissing cousins' tonight?

 

[EverCurious]

Care4all uhm... so you realize that's a personal interpretation right?

Also, here's the actual source - http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf

 

[Wyatt earp]

1) OK, assuming that means you're dropping the stupid shit that your vote didn't count when you voted according to the rules of your State then we're good on that point

2) I asked you how you know that was their intent since we are following their rules and everything I've read just says they wanted the States to decide how to allocate their electors

I read it when searching HISTORY of presidential race electors, and Hamilton and Madison among a few others who created the system and why they created it, verses letting actual house and Senate members voting.

Still no links? Of course, that's what happens when you make your shit up. The founding fathers left it up to the States how to allocate their electors. You're still zero for everything. Link, wench. Where did the FFs say States were supposed to allocate proportionately. Your claim, back it up

here ya go with just one link....it's a long read, much more at the link...I doubt you'll read it all or even try to understand it...

The Electoral College - Origin and History

The Electoral College

Excerpt from an original document located at Jackson County, MO Election Board

by William C. Kimberling, Deputy Director FEC National Clearinghouse on Election Administration

In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that:

• was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government
  
• contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable)
  
• believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and
  
• felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.").

How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other?


Origins of the Electoral College
The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president.

One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.

A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors.

The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party.

The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages.

The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons.


The First Design
In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution):

• Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States.
  
• The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government.
  
• Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government.
  
• Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence.
  
• In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice.

• The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results.
  
• The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention.
  
• In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two.

In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns

while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later.


The Second Design
The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as Edmund Burke and James Madison.

One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor - but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804.

To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for "favorite sons", either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors.

Stop the racist crap you know you're out of your league in my topic.. I don't even have to read it to know what you are thinking

have you and your firewater bottle decided to become 'kissing cousins' tonight?

Nah after 20 years or so on the internet.. I am really good at knowing what the retort is.. Maybe I should stop.
But it's fun for me.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

 

[Care4all]

Care4all uhm... so you realize that's a personal interpretation right?

Also, here's the actual source - http://www.fec.gov/pdf/eleccoll.pdf

yes, I just found the original link myself, but TY anyway!!

it is part of the FEC govt files, so I'm pretty certain it is fairly accurate

 

[Care4all]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

yes bear, the EC

IS GOOD

but NOT the way we have it set up now....

 

[Pogo]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

Non sequitur. The EC is dividing us. So that's why it's not.

 

[EverCurious]

Care4all so basically you are completely ignoring the very clear header that notes that it is purely that one guys opinion. Gotcha...

 

[Wyatt earp]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

Non sequitur. The EC is dividing us. So that's why it's not.

How?

 

[Pogo]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

Non sequitur. The EC is dividing us. So that's why it's not.

How?

"How"? Really?

Where do the concepts of "red states" and "blue states" come from?
And why do candidates obsess on "battleground states" while ignoring the "red" or "blue" ones they have in the bag?

How do we get wags on this message board calling for California (or in a previous episode, Texas) to secede and just GTFO, specifically on account of their "blueness" or "redness"?

Whence cometh those artificial dividing terms? Would any of them have any reason to exist at all --- if not for the EC?

That's how.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Again the United States

United we stand divided we fall.

That's why the EC is so good.

Non sequitur. The EC is dividing us. So that's why it's not.

How?

"How"? Really?

Where do the concepts of "red states" and "blue states" come from?
And why do candidates obsess on "battleground states" while ignoring the "red" or "blue" ones they have in the bag?

How do we get wags on this message board calling for California (or in a previous episode, Texas) to secede and just GTFO, specifically on account of their "blueness" or "redness"?

Whence cometh those artificial dividing terms? Would any of them have any reason to exist at all --- if not for the EC?

That's how.

I guess we travel and you don't.