Quote:
Originally posted by troutman@Oct 13 2004, 11:06 AM
The case against the Electoral College:
http://www.fairvote.org/op_eds/electoral_college.htm
A candidate who lost the popular vote may have been elected president. To remedy this clearly undemocratic result and the general problem of most states being entirely ignored because they are not competitive, the Center advocates a direct popular election with a majority requirement
http://www.sidems.org/electoral.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Electoral_College
Supporters of direct election argue that it would give everyone an equal vote, regardless of which part of the country they live in, and oppose giving disproportionately amplified voting power to voters in small states. In contrast, the Electoral College disenfranchises those voters in every state who cast their votes for the candidate receiving fewer votes in that state. And it also partly disenfranchises voters in larger states by reducing their proportional contribution to the final election result.
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Is there still a case
for the electoral college? The original reason behind it was that direct election would have been impossible in the era before long-distance communications, was it not?
Edit: Found this explanation in the 2nd link:
The framers decided to have the President chosen via the indirect method of the Electoral College rather than by direct popular vote because the majority of them were highly suspicious of the average person's ability to make a knowledgeable and dispassionate choice. This suspicion of the average person has no place in the world of the twenty-first century where people are much better educated and have access to much more information than did their counterparts of 1787.