[EM] Electoral College (was Re: Voting by selecting a published ordering)

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 01:44 AM 4/27/2006, Dave Ketchum wrote:

>Now disagreed:
>       Who is third in a state could be a serious contender in others.

Absolutely.

>       EVs for a minor candidate COULD be pledged as to who to vote for if
>their primary candidate lost.

Yes. Or, alternatively, if it is the electors being trusted by the 
public, themselves, rather than their pledges (pledges were *not* 
part of the system as designed), I would presume that a trustworthy 
elector would not waste his or her vote if the favorite candidate was 
not going to win.

In my view, it is pledges which are a major part of the problem. If 
an elector sees that a first-ballot victory is highly likely to go to 
a least-favored candidate, why shouldn't that elector be free to vote 
for the favorite of the top two?

Pledges are like pledged proxies, i.e., no better than remote voting. 
The point of the College was to have a deliberative process, 
something that was totally frustrated by the state legislatures, 
acting, at each time, in the interest of the majority party in the 
state. Cumulatively, as no action was taken to stop it, the states 
rather quickly fell in line; by the end, it was a *necessity* to take 
such action. Until and unless a better global solution came along.

And a plurality party is not motivated to fix the system. It would 
take, as I explained, a coalition of parties and interests to do it, 
with measures that are designed to ultimately produce the desired 
effect (which is essentially a PR College) without doing harm along 
the way. Constitutionally, this is quite possible.

All it takes is will.