We need more electoral layers in our elections

[Fletchette]

As many of you know, the Democrats have been pushing to remove the Electoral College ever since the 2000 elections. They argue that a popular vote would make “every vote count”. Thankfully, they have made little progress. However, now that they control Congress, I suspect an attempt to change this.

Since this process is delineated in the Constitution, it would need a super-majority to pass. However, in this day and age of ignoring the Constitution, I could see the Democrats implementing a mere law or even a "rule" with the force of law to the same affect.

Another election issue of late has been voting machine accountability. Ironically, the Democrats have been questioning the accuracy of voting machines (note that they do not question voting machine accuracy when they win). In any case, the real issue is transparency, not accuracy. The public needs to believe that the process was followed and no votes were added or deleted.

The Founders, in their exemplary wisdom, came up with the Electoral College. It did not require computers and was yielded very believable results. The reason for this is apparent if you consider how people decide whether an election was fair. If you live in a very liberal state, like Massachusetts, you would expect the people there to vote for a liberal. You would have less of a feel for what say, Wyoming, wants. Even a conservative in Massachusetts would not be inclined to think that the election was “stolen” if the results of the election were that the majority of the people within the state wanted a liberal. This provides legitimacy because individuals have a good understanding of what the people around them want.

If we get rid of the Electoral College, like the Democrats want, how would an individual believe the results? Can you imagine how you would feel if the election results were for say, a religious extremist, when everyone you know is vehemently against that candidate? You would have to reconcile that you live in an aberration, and that most of the country is radically different from your local area. The Electoral College mitigates this potential problem and makes the election much more believable, and hence legitimate.

In the last two hundred years the population has dramatically increased. Now the political climate can change very dramatically within a state. In 2000, many liberal voters in cities could not believe that the state voted for a conservative, largely because these urban dwellers had very little contact with rural citizens even in their own state. Many questioned the legitimacy of the election.

The solution is more electoral layers, not less. If cities or counties had electoral votes then people would be more inclined to believe the election results. Both urban and rural citizens would believe the result of their local election, and conclude that the electoral vote fore their district was legitimate.

The position of the Democrats, to get rid of the Electoral College as well as questioning voting machines, is hypocritical and contradictory. If the electoral College were eliminated even more people would question the accuracy of the voting machines. The legitimacy of every election would be questioned. If we do need to change our voting system, it should be to add more electoral layers, not subtract them. Yes, this would mean that the candidate elected might not have a popular majority, but the results would be believable.

This is a Republic, not a Democracy.

 

[silliman89]

In theory, that's a good idea, which is why Maine does it that way.

What's to motivate a state like NY or CA to split it's electoral vote though? Why should they want to give some of the electoral votes to the city liberals and the rest to the rural conservatives? If they do, then their electoral votes are split and cancel out.

It's natural for everyone to want the other guy's state to split its votes, but not their own.

 

[TallPine]

Not to mention the fact that the constitution originally prescribed that senators were to be elected by the state legislatures, not by popular vote

 

[mordechaianiliewicz]

It is easy to see by looking at how the Constitution was originally written that the states and the people were both seen as having "power."

The point of the electoral college and the state legislature voting for the Senate, and the President was to achieve two objectives. #1. Make sure that smaller states (in population) still got a say in how the country works without totally nullifying the decisions of people in larger states. #2. Make sure that the Senate would always have the state's rights in mind when they went to Washington. Whereas guns give the citizen's teeth to defend their rights, and the 1st Amendment gives the people a voice to avoid having to use those teeth, the Senate gives the states a voice to avoid having to call up their militias.

When we got rid of the state Senatorial decisions, we effectively destoyed the 10th Amendment, and finished the job that the Civil War began. If we were to get rid of the electoral college, we would only widen the chasm between the less populated and increasingly culturally endangered Southern and Western states, and the liberal Northeast and West coast.

Politicians for years referred to the Midwest, and the West as the "flyover country" and if we eliminated the electoral college, politicians would only schmooze the cities in those areas.

After all, ATL might have less votes overrall than the rest of Georgia, but if you combine ATL with Miami, Jacksonville, Buffalo NY, and Baltimore Maryland, you can beat the outlying areas everytime. Every Western state would be avoided, and politicians might stop in Denver but that would be it.

The founders understood that every area had to be able to do their own thing, and they also knew that every region in the country had to be consulted as to how things were going to go, or there would be efforts to succede. While the states were willing to allow a certain ammount of meddling by the feds, they wanted the "straight jacket" of the Constitution to help reign that power in.

The Democrats know that if they can make the "rural butt-crack folk" irrelevant, they can more easily impose their agenda. Thing is, none of the Western states would approve it.

 

[RealGun]

They could actually revisit gerrymandering, but the Electoral College serves an important purpose.

 

[Fletchette]

What's to motivate a state like NY or CA to split it's electoral vote though?

Nothing, really. Those in power tend to re-write the rules to keep themselves in power.

My post was meant more as a counter-arguement to those who want to go further down the wrong road.

 

[geekWithA.45]

Since this process is delineated in the Constitution, it would need a super-majority to pass.

And it would also need a supermajority of the states to ratify it.

The electoral college does indeed serve an important purpose, and it's a purpose they don't like.

As thin as it is, it is a barrier to blatant populism politics, wherein the masses are bought off.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

My Take

My take on the electoral system would be to keep the electoral college as is. But, I would make it necessary for each state to elect it's electors by no less than a majority, meaning that if in a particular state with three(or more) candidates on the ballot and no one candidate received a majority of the votes(less than 50%), then a run-off election would be required. That way, there could be no third party spoiling an election as was the case that elected Bill Clinton - twice - to the office of President.

Even though Clinton received a majority of the electoral votes, many of those votes would have been designated to be cast for George H. W. Bush or Bob Dole. Clinton would never have been president if it wasn't for the draw of Republican/conservative votes away from Bush 41 and Dole by Ross Perot.

A popular election for the president could be spoiled similarly and much easier. A popular election is too close to pure democracy, too. A promise from a candidate to distribute all Bill Gates' wealth to everyone would be the kind of election campaigning you'd see.

We need to keep the Electoral College just as it is, but make run-off elections mandatory when there is no majority winner of electors in any of the several states.

Even though this is a Union created by the people, it is a union of states. It's "The United States of America", and not "The United People of America". Switching to a popular election method of choosing our president would effectively destroy the Union as it is, and all but wipe out any significance of the several states. Going to a popular election of the senators has brought us half way there. Senators are thought of more as having a national role anymore, rather than a body of representatives representing, and more concerned about, their respective state. We the People have our House of Representatives to represent the majority of us. Again, the Senate has turned into more of a body representing our national government than a body representing our several state's interests.

Our Founding Fathers had it right in the beginning. George Washington said in his Farewell Address:

"One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown...."

The Seventeenth Amendment is one such alteration. It should be repealed and the authority of selecting our senators would then be returned to the legislature of each state - where it should be, and where it worked to keep the federal level of government in check.

Every attack upon our Right to Keep and Bear Arms has come after this amendment took effect. The first third of the Senate would have been replaced in 1915, and the last third by 1921. It wasn't but eleven years later, and after the stock market crashed, that taxes started going up, the depression started getting serious, and it seems the only concern of Congress and the Democrat presidents was how much money could be squeezed from the people.

Bottom line here is that since the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, Democrats have held the Senate for 30 congresses, and the Republicans only 11. Since the end of the Civil War up to the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment, the Republicans held the majority for 19 congresses to the Democrats holding only 3. The Seventeenth Amendment created a major shift in this country that has been both detrimental to our rights and allowed a major shift in government from the several states to a large, power-grabbing, and bellicose Congress - with a compliant Court to boot! If you want to know why and how the government got so big, look no further than the Seventeenth Amendment.

So, we had better keep the Electoral College lest we lose it all to the liberal factions with their self-serving agendas. We'd better repeal the Seventeenth Amendment, too, if we wish to shrink the size of the federal government of our Union and put all the power usurped from us and our several states back where it belongs.

Woody

"The Second Amendment is absolute. Learn it, live it, love it and be armed in the defense of freedom, our rights, and our sovereignty. If we refuse infringement to our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, as protected by the Second Amendment, we will never be burdened by tyranny, dictatorship, or subjugation - other than to bury those who attempt it. B.E.Wood

 

[Lone_Gunman]

Ironically, the Democrats have been questioning the accuracy of voting machines (note that they do not question voting machine accuracy when they win).

Isn't this statement a little unfair? I mean, Republicans have done a good bit of questioning election results also. Remember, Bush had a team of lawyers in Florida in 2000 also.

Are you saying Republicans never question the result when they lose?

 

[Kentak]

So, you want to take away my right to vote directly for my Senator and President?

Sorry. Direct popular election for both.

K

 

[Fletchette]

Quote:
Ironically, the Democrats have been questioning the accuracy of voting machines (note that they do not question voting machine accuracy when they win).

Isn't this statement a little unfair? I mean, Republicans have done a good bit of questioning election results also. Remember, Bush had a team of lawyers in Florida in 2000 also.

Are you saying Republicans never question the result when they lose?

I was intending to criticize the Democrats, and not necessarily defend Republicans. But now that you mention it, didn't two Republican Senators step down, handing the Senate to Democrats, without asking for a recount to which they were entitled? Hardly conclusive evidence, but evidence nevertheless.

Again, my intent of the whole article was to argue against the demise of the Electoral College.

 

[Fletchette]

The Seventeenth Amendment is one such alteration. It should be repealed and the authority of selecting our senators would then be returned to the legislature of each state - where it should be, and where it worked to keep the federal level of government in check.

Woodcdi, I agree completely. Unfortunately, most of the nation does not (or isn't aware). I am quite concerned that the Democrat controlled Congress will try something akin to the 1934 Firearms Act - clearly unConstitutional, passed with less than the prescribed Amendment process yet upheld by double-speaking Supreme Court Justices. Expect something like, the "Make Every Vote Count Act" to hit the floor of Congress...

 

[Waitone]

Direct election of senators was one of the three biggest boners the US pulled. It was an unmitigated mistake and we are paying the price each and every day it continues.

In our federal form of government it is the job of states to serve up representatives to the national congress. Fed's influence should be limited to making sure elections were conducted fairly. How is the domain of the state.

 

[hugh damright]

At our founding, the biggest State had ten times as many people as the smallest State ... and each State was given an EC vote based upon its population plus one extra vote to give the smaller States some extra weight.

Today, the biggest State has 70 times as many people as the smallest State ... so would the Framers have come up with a different system, giving more weight to the smaller States ... for instance, might they have given each State an EC vote based upon its population plus seven extra votes ... or might they have had a cap such that no State can have more than ten EC votes, or something of that nature?

 

[geekWithA.45]

Re: the 17th

The Constitution originally delegated the method of selecting Senators to the States.

An article I read a few years back tells me that initially, the State constitutions delegated that Power to the State Legislatures, who adopted various rules and generally selected from amongst themselves who would be the federal Senator.

The process was generally corrupt, and folks complained, so States started turning their senate seats over to popular vote as the result of state level reform measures. By the time the 17th was ratified, a substantial portion of states were already directly electing senators.

It struck me as one of those situations were politicians had their toys taken away, with various unforseen repercussions to the Republic as a whole.

 

[unixguy]

So if the 17th were repealed, what would stop us from returning to those corrupt practices?

A couple of folks have mentioned that with the current method Senators are more responsible to the Republic as a whole rather than to the state that they represent. Are there examples? I thought the whole idea was to send someone to represent the views of that state in congress.

For example, would repealing the 17th reduce the amount of pork that gets stuck into bills? How?

 

[Waitone]

A nicely written summary of the 17th amendment's history and some of the reasons for its passage.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/LAW/09/17/fl.dean.17th.amendment/index.html

 

[Fletchette]

One important nuance is that the 17th Amendment, combined with 16th Amendment (Income Tax) is what really gave us the one-two punch.

Today, Senators pander to the people instead of their State. This sounds good, but ends up making Senators pass populist-type laws in order to be, er, "popular".

The 16th Amendment means that the Fed can tax the people directly and make the State do things that it wouldn't otherwise do to get "Federal Assistance". For example, the speed limit in a State is no way the domain of the Federal government, but the Fed can "withhold" Federal Highway Funding (obtained by taxing individuals) if the State does not comply with Federal standards.

The combined effect of the 16th and 17th Amendments is that there is no significant counter force to tell the Federal govenrment "Hands off! This is a State issue!" Washington D.C. gets all the power.

 

[Avenger29]

Instead of repealing the 17 Amendment, there should be term limits on the House and Senate. Too many politicians go up to Wash. and stay for the rest of their lives playing with interns, getting re-elected

But you know that it will never pass b/c the congresscritters themselves have to make it so, just like congressional pay raises always pass...

I think I might write my thesis on how the people of the US have been screwed by politicians since 1789... Might make it to book status...

 

[Fletchette]

So if the 17th were repealed, what would stop us from returning to those corrupt practices?

Nothing. But what many forget is that politicians did not stop being corrupt with the passage of the 17th Amendment.

So you have two choices:

1) Corrupt politicans who pander populist agandas to bribe the people to vote for them, ultimately driving us to socialism, or

2) Corrupt politicians who pander to their State Legislatures by trying to grab as much power for the State (and from the Federal government).

I'll choose door number two, Bob.

 

[Kentak]

I can just hear all the pro-gunners piss and moan as soon as their state legislatures appoint anti-gun senators.

Tell me why taking my right to directly elect my senators by repealing the 17A is good for me.

K

 

[TallPine]

Tell me why taking my right to directly elect my senators by repealing the 17A is good for me.

Well, it never was really a right. The original constitution did not grant you that "right" nor is it something implicit like life and liberty. The writers of the constitution thought that a different method of selection for senators and representatives was best, and that's the way the government was originally designed to operate. Perhaps you also think that you should have a "right" to vote for a new president every two years instead of four but that just isn't the way it works.

Maybe the way that it used to work is or isn't good for you. But you should have much more control over choosing your state legislators because you are closer to them and can actually know them personally in many cases. Given a well chosen state legislature, you should have well chosen senators.

Popular election of senators has lead to the fact that huge sums of money are necessary to buy (via advertising) an election win. A lot of money gets pumped in from other states to influence critical elections. So then you basically have folks in other states choosing your senators - is that good?

 

[Fletchette]

I can just hear all the pro-gunners piss and moan as soon as their state legislatures appoint anti-gun senators.

Tell me why taking my right to directly elect my senators by repealing the 17A is good for me.

1) Pro-gunners will always complain (and rightly so) when a government official tries to usurp the Second Amendment. However, it is much more likely that the combination of a directly-elected House and an State appointed Senate would have opposing forces to mitigate any anti-liberty agenda.

2) It was not your right to vote for a Senator before the 17th Amendment, so that term is debatable.

3) I must make the distinction between what is good for you and what is good for the Nation. Electing a socialist that steals all of Bill Gates' money and gives part of it to you may be good for you, but bad for the nation.