[EM] Thoughts on electoral college

[RLSuter at aol.com]

In a message dated 9/16/04 10:15 pm EDT, Alex Small writes:

> Normally I would be excited to see 3rd party candidates play a larger role, 
> but the US Constitution stipulates that if nobody gets a majority of the 
> electoral votes cast then we go to a Byzantine House of Representatives 
> runoff:

Candidates could negotiate prior to the electoral college vote with the
aim of exchanging concessions for electoral votes and one candidate
getting enough additional votes for a majority. About half the states
put restrictions on electors, requiring them to vote for the candidates
under whose namea they were chosen. But many legal scholars doubt
that these laws are constitutional. In any case, if states decided go go
to a proporational allocation system, they could and probably would
get rid of laws restricting electors except to the extent of requiring
them to vote as directed by the candidates under whose names they
were chosen.

For an extensive and apparently authoritative summary of information
about the electoral college that describes various reform proposals
(it's aa January 2001 congressional report), see "The Electoral
College: An Overview and Analysis of Reform Proposals" at
http://www.ncseonline.org/nle/crsreports/government/gov-39.cfm

-Ralph Suter