"The Electoral College is so interwoven with our political system that it could not be abolished without raising more questions than even most advocates for reform would wish. (If the Electoral College must submit to majoritarian imperatives, why not the Senate?) But as a vote-counting system, the Electoral College has been so sufficiently robbed of its logic that its survival is not assured. Perhaps its advantages outweigh its disadvantages. But its advantages -- as a device for keeping a working federal system of states in place -- require a constitutional scholar to explain. Its disadvantages -- as a standing threat, every few elections, to arbitrarily thwart the will of the people and open a wide gap between the spirit and the letter of the law -- are in plain view."Maybe we should just dump this complicated piece of the electoral process our forefathers 'dreamed' up. They obviously didn't understand how stupid we'd become.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Electoral College: Too complicated?
NYTs Magazine:
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1 comment:
This is obviously from the NYTs Magazine. The people who consider the rest of us 'fly over' states don't understand how crucial the electoral college is. Would Iowa, WI, or any other small state see any campaigning if we eliminated the electoral college?
In fact, the only wide gap I see is the gap between those of us in the midwest who have some sense of history and common sense and those on the coasts who seem to forget every crazy scheme they've tried in the past and had fail.
Andy
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