The electoral college is a remnant from the Hamiltonian Age. Basically, Alexander Hamilton believed that the common, uninformed rabble should not enter the world of politics, and that it should be the domain instead of an intellectual elite. The electoral college was the way Hamilton decided to separate the government from the bloody mob the French Revolution showed would develop.
we just had a debate about this at school. i agree with parsat it should be abolished. the electoral college was needed when the public was kinda "dumb" i guess you can say but but in modern society everyone has a common knowledge. we the people should be able to vote without other people deciding if we are right on who picked
the electoral college isnt a group of people. my teache explained it to us as points. so say there are 2 main candidates running (Dem and Rep parties) along with a bunch of lesser candidates that no one has heard of. say that in california the vote is 35 % for the dem. candidate and 40% the rep. candidate then 10% another candidate 5% for another and the remaining 10% for another lesser candidate. the rep. candidate would get 55 votes (points) from california because the rep. candidate got the majority vote for the state. so he/she would have 55 points out of the required 270 points/votes. then ay the dem candidate gets the majority vote for florida then he/she has 27 points/votes.
it kinda works but i still dont like it. the winner should be based on the total popularity vote (the actual count from the total population)
Well the Ellectoral College is VERY necessary...why?
states representatives vote on the best candidate based on what he/she says..if only the popular vote was up (vote of the people) then many people would vote on the president that is 1.more attractive 2.just cause 3.other people re telling them to 4.they see what they think theyre gonna do.
thos are big flaws,i think there shouldnt be representatives in numbers,well only 3 per state.that means that candidates would have to tin the majority of states,not just california,new york and pennsylvania...thos combine for 100..very very big only 3 states and that already puts him/her almost at half (270 to win).
Yes, I believe that it's necessary, from what I understand of the United States geographicaly, I believe that the electoral college votes are necessary. Otherwise, your bigger states could have alot of individual votes, where the smaller state's votes wouldn't even compare to them.
But I think that bigger land states should get an extra vote or so, due to having the ability to support more people. Just a thought.
I believe that it makes the popular vote useless. Which means people are less inclined to vote, like Lige said. Anyway, only about half of the adults eligible to vote are voting in the US.