[EM] electoral college/Serious thoughts

[Adam Tarr]

Paul K wrote:

>Alex's explanation is closest to what I learned in Civics as a
>6th-grader, and evidently that isn't taught any more.
>
>The EC was a part of the "Great Compromise" that also led to the
>bicameral system. Every state gets equal representation in the senate
>and proportional representantion in the House. This was to ensure that
>low-population states weren't ignored entirely (although now they pretty
>much are anyway).

Well, I learned it in 7th grade, but all the same.  Anyway, the great 
compromise you speak of is more about the bicameral legislature than it is 
explicitly about election of presidents.  The two are related, of course, 
but I've never heard the term "Great Compromise" applied to anything but 
the House/Senate arrangement.

Alex's points about various justifications of the EC are well taken, but 
it's important to note the 3/5 rule (each slave is worth 3/5 of a person 
for the purposes of representatives and electoral votes) was part and 
parcel of the EC setup.  I'm not arguing that the EC is inherently racist 
or anything, I'm just pointing out that a big part of what made it an 
acceptable compromise is that it allowed this abstraction of the voting 
totals to account for slaves.  In the absence of the women/slaves issues, 
it's possible the founding fathers would have gone with a straight popular 
vote.

>I made no proposal and offered no opinion in my original reply, so I
>wish people would quit attributing such to me. I only observed that the
>worst problem with the Electoral College is the way the states have
>chosen to implement their part of the METHOD.

Two responses:

1)  As Alex argued, states (or at least the majority in each state) have 
some strategic incentive to cast all the electoral votes in one shot.

2)  In my opinion, any implementation of the EC that requires a state to 
cast an integer number of votes for any given candidate is too crude to be 
considered "good".  Just my opinion of course.

-Adam