No electoral college

that is somewhat true. However, without the EC, candidates for the presidency would only bother with the 6 or 7 largest states, and everywhere else would be ignored. To carry it to an extreme, you could see these same states being lavished with massive pork barrel spending by the Presidents, in hopes of either being reelected or their party successor being elected, while the rest of the nation languishes. After 200 years of this, the nation might very well have a sharp 'us vs. them', high population vs. low population states, attitude.

Why don't we see this nowadays? The "big" states are still worth many more electoral votes than the small states. Indeed, the road to the presidency can be traveled using only the eleven largest states and unlike in your scenario, those states are winner take all (those eleven states, in 2004, could've been won with just 27% of the popular vote nationwide assuming that candidate received no votes in any other states and won only a single vote plurality). So using your logic it would make sense to put all your resources into winning those states. Instead, campaigns target these swing states where small swings in vote margins can deliver the state's electoral votes to your camp.

Plus, without the EC, the US would likely not have the two party system it has now, but a plethora of smaller parties centered around a few issues. It's hard to see how a presidential candidate would get anything close to a majority vote. In fact, without the EC, the presidential election process just wouldn't work as is... you'd have to have something more along the lines of European elections; they deal with multi-party systems all the time....

Without an electoral college, there'd have to be a run-off placed into the system to ensure a majority was achieved as only 2 of the last 5 elections have produced a popular vote majority winner. However, even with a system I forsee a two party system of sorts; instead of just having two parties, you'd have two alliances of parties, left and right, which would jointly agree on a ticket beforehand to ensure they had the best chance of achieving an outright majority.

No system makes more sense than a Popular Vote with run-off for electing the US President. I can certainly see why an Electoral College was put into the Constitution (frankly the late 1700s were not a democratic perioid when viewed in today's light), but its time had run out when states began apportioning electors based on popular vote instead of the vote of the state legislatures. At that juncture, it no longer made any sense to use the popular vote inside a bastardized system that could elect a person who did not receive a clear majority of the national popular vote.
 
I believe that in particular regard to the Democractic Campaign ...

I don't know if this is what you intended to say, but my observation is that this year points out the failure of the "more democratic" proportional delegate selection process the Demorcats use. If the Dems used the winner take all process of the Republicans, one of the candidates would almost certainly have secured the nomination by now and there would be no possibility that the candidate might be selected by unelected super delegates.

Of course political parties are under no compulsion to follow democratic or even semi-democratic procedures in selecting candidates - arguably stronger and better candidates were selected by the old smoke-filled room process of the 19th and early 20th century
 
Why don't we see this nowadays? The "big" states are still worth many more electoral votes than the small states. Indeed, the road to the presidency can be traveled using only the eleven largest states and unlike in your scenario, those states are winner take all (those eleven states, in 2004, could've been won with just 27% of the popular vote nationwide assuming that candidate received no votes in any other states and won only a single vote plurality). So using your logic it would make sense to put all your resources into winning those states. Instead, campaigns target these swing states where small swings in vote margins can deliver the state's electoral votes to your camp.
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They don't do this precisely because of the EC. The smaller states are proportionally more valuable in the EC. Because of the 'winner take all' of the EC, no candidate can really afford to campaign in just the 'big 11' states... chances are, they're going to lose some of them, and they need the delegates from the smaller states to make up for them. The GOP has won often because it can add up most of the southern and western states to make up for losing some of the NE states.
In a popular vote, you wouldn't need to do this... all you really need to do is win a majority in the biggest states. Campaigning would be very heavy in the 'big 11', lighter but still heavy in those states with middling populations, and mostly absent in the smallest states. About the only time campaigning will increase in the smaller states is in those elections that are very close run...
 
that is somewhat true. However, without the EC, candidates for the presidency would only bother with the 6 or 7 largest states, and everywhere else would be ignored.

And the difference to OTL is ????:)

Actually, I think the EC actually EMPHASIZES the power of the bigger states. (My wife and I strongly disagree on this, she takes your view point.) With an EC, a candidate only needs to take 50.01% of the vote of NY or CA to get their entire slate of candidates, whereas a state like Iowa only has ?7? votes in the EC, so it doesn't matter one way or another.
 
It provides at least three important services. First, it ensures that the president receives a majority of (electoral) votes. Second, it provides a buffer against mob rule. Finally, it is (or at least was) a system of protecting states' rights.
(1) True, the electoral college, particularly when coupled with a 2-party system, guarantees that one candidate receives a majority (as opposed to a mere plurality) of votes, or at least makes it extremely improbable for a candidate not to receive a majority.

(2) WTFF? Mob rule? What does that even mean? Rule by the mob? As in the Sicillian mob? Other organized crime syndicates? Because America was practically under mob rule during the Prohibition Era. Massive gangs controlled entire cities! Al Capone held the real power in Chicago and the entire metropolitan area during the 1920's. I do not see how the electoral college provided any sort of buffer against mob rule during the Prohibition Era. (Organized crime was so severe that gangs could pull the strings of local government, and even the federal government, helping to prevent a repeal of the Prohibition so as not to lose their monopoly on alcohol once it was legalized.)

(3) I understand the point about states' rights. Ron Paul argued that it gives smaller states more say in presidential elections. My problem with the concept of "states' rights" (aside from its abuses) is that ultimately, individuals have rights, not the states. I am generally in favor of a slightly more decentralized federal system, and so sympathize with states having protections against an encroaching national government, but I think individual rights trump states' rights.

Basically you gave only two functions of the electoral college. You failed to demonstrate how it guarded against mob rule during the 1920's. (Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, and FDR, all of whom presided over the USA during Prohibiton were all elected according to the rules of the electoral college.)

Well, the fact is that we don't have a democratic republic - very few governments that have used those terms together have ever been either of the two historically - the United States is a representational republic.

Oh please! There is one tiny problem with the "Republic, not a Democracy" argument. It is bullshit! First of all, the question whether we are a democracy or a republic is a phony, meaningless question and presents a false dichotomy. It is like asking whether it is daytime or Winter. A republic is a state form, democracy is not a state form. The question of whether or not a regime is a democracy asks with whom sovereignty lies. The question of whether or not a regime is a republic asks what state form is applied.

State Forms: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Republic.
Sovereignty: Despotism, Aristocracy, Democracy.
Economic Systems: Feudal/pre-Feudal, Mercantilist, Capitalist, Socialist, etc.

The United States is governed by rule of law, and the Constitution is the supreme law of the land. As such, the USA employs a constitutional form of governance. The prescribed state form is a republic. Therefore, the US is a constitutional republic. However, within the bounds of the constitution, the people hold the power. America is founded on popular sovereignty as much as it is on rule of law. The two are not mutually exclusive. In conclusion, the United States of America is a democratic constitutional republic. So, yes we ARE a democratic republic. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, but the wishes of the populace come right after the Constitution.

Note that a democracy need not be a republic, and a republic need not be a democracy. The UK is a monarchy, with a king/queen as head of state, but the UK is ultimately governed by rule of law, not rule of the king or queen (tyranny). The British monarch is a constitutional monarch, not an autocrat. Also, (s)he is a limited monarch. There are elections providing for popular sovereignty so the UK is a democracy and a monarchy (not a republic). On the contrary, the Third Reich and the USSR (it was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) were republics but not democracies. So next time someone says we are a not a democracy, but a republic, ask them what they think of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

(I am aware that there was probably never a "pure" democracy in recent human history, at least not a long lived one. Even the Athenian democracy, their "direct democracy" as opposed to our "representative democracy" was in reality a form of aristocratic class rule. The city-state of Athena was NOT a Republic. The state form was an oligarchy or aristocracy because the class of citizens was narrowly defined to exclude women, metics and Greeks born in other polises, foreigners, slaves (who were a majority), and most commoners. The "citizen class" was basically an all-male nobility, so though the theory was one of popular sovereignty (democracy) and all citizens participated in governance (direct democracy), the state form was oligarchic, rule of law was spurious or scant at best, and there was no constitution in the familiar sense. Which is more democratic? A direct democracy by noblemen or aristocrats disenfranchising the majority, or indirect representation from officials elected by all adult citizens?)
 
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Interesting. Say yes, we get a second election like France and break down the two party system.

without the EC, I doubt we'd have ever have had a two party system... the EC isn't needed for Congressional elections, only for Presidential... but the EC pretty much forces a 2 party system on the US, because you need the support to get the necessary votes... basically, the EC puts both sides of the spectrum into a pair of 'big tent' parties. If the EC had never been written into the Constitution, the latter would soon have been rewritten to allow for something more like Europe's multi-party election system... out of necessity...
 
(2) WTFF? Mob rule? What does that even mean? Rule by the mob? As in the Sicillian mob? Other organized crime syndicates? Because America was practically under mob rule during the Prohibition Era. Massive gangs controlled entire cities! Al Capone held the real power in Chicago and the entire metropolitan area during the 1920's. I do not see how the electoral college provided any sort of buffer against mob rule during the Prohibition Era. (Organized crime was so severe that gangs could pull the strings of local government, and even the federal government, helping to prevent a repeal of the Prohibition so as not to lose their monopoly on alcohol once it was legalized.)
:rolleyes:

No. Think more tyranny by majority.

Also, the electoral college does give a lot of power to smaller states. While there's a lot of controversy about Florida, if Gore had one New Hampshire and it's 4 electoral votes he'd have been President, with or without Florida.
 
No. Think more tyranny by majority.

I was actually being rather snarky. I kind of figured that "mob rule" referred to "tyrrany of the majority" or the feared effects of the people having actual power, not virtual power. Basically, people who use phrases such as "mob rule" in that context or "tyrrany of the majority" or who claim that "we are a republic, not a democracy" despise majoritarian democracy because they tend to be either fascists or aristocratic reactionaries (at worse), or terribly ignorant about history, philosophy, political theory, or... pretty much anything (at best). Rather than respond directly to such idiotic arguments that the electoral college protects against "mob rule" (whatever that means) I decided to satirize such arguments by interpreting mob rule literally, so as to mean "rule of the mob" as went on throughout most of the nation during Prohibition. If you think my claim that reactionary fear of "tyranny of the majority" (a real danger in some contexts but a meaningless fear in most), is a fascist trait (not to say that all people who parrot such sound bytes are fascists) remember that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were all "republics but not democracies" and I am sure the enlightened leadership of the Communist Party protected Soviet citizens from "tyrrany of the majority" as well.

By the way, the sentiment that democracy equals mob rule comes from Aristotle. He believed that the three "good" forms of government are monarchy, aristocracy, and republic and their three "evil" counterparts are tyrrany, oligarchy, and democracy. Aside from the fact that the Aristotelian political theory is a total crock of shit, taken seriously by nobody (outside of a purely historical interest) except for hacks mostly confined to cyberspace (for instance, a republic could be democratic or tyrranical, a constitutional monarchy could be democratic, you can even have a "democratic" rule of the nobility as Aristotle should have known as he lived in such times, etc.), it is clear from his writings that Aristotle, like nearly all aristocratic reactionaries, had nothing but contempt for the common man! No wonder Aristotle is so popular among fascists.

Of course, no matter how proto-fascist Aristotle tended to be, I grant that he was not a fascist himself though Aristotle definitely was an authoritarian reactionary. Aristotle was a racist with a contempt for commoners and a staunch defender of slavery (if slavery was so evil slaves, would commit suicide so said Aristotle) and an advocate of the supremacy of aristocratic noblemen. However, to call him a fascist would be misleading because Aristotle was not advocating a fascist-type totalitarian state so much as he was unapologetically defending his own class' interests. Plato on the other hand, was a fascist. His more "revolutionary" writings actually advocated a totalitarian state and Plato could rightly be called the Father of Fascism thousands of years before Mussolini and Hitler. (I am Greek yet even I despise Plato and Aristotle.)

My problem with such reactionary attitudes, such as the belief that majoritarian democracy always means mob rule, is that such sentiment underlied the transformation of the United States from democracy to oligarchy, from republic to empire, and from capitalism (free enterprise) to corporatism.

But what about the topic at hand? As for the electoral college, I think that there should be no reason why we do not have a one person, one vote rule. But I grant that the EC does help the smaller states, or at least prevents presidential campaigns from ignoring the smaller states (even though nowadays campaigners ignore states like CA, IL, MN, NY that would vote one way or AL, AR, ID, KS, MN, MS, ND, NE, OK, SD, TN, TX, UT, WY that would vote another). Instead campaigners will focus on battleground states to the detriment of states the Democrats can expect to win (California, Hawaii, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, all of New England) or that Republicans always win (the Bible Belt, Texas, Mormon Belt). It seems that presidential candidates are only interested in campaigning in Ohio, Maryland, Florida, or the Southwest most of the time.

I do not advocate abolishing the Electoral College, but reform may be needed to ensure that presidential candidates do not "steal the election" as Gov'nah Bush did in 2000. One way to effectively abolish the EC without actually eliminating it (or amending the constitution) would be to have all the biggest states (i.e. California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas) give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote (majority or plurality). Because individual states have a say in how their electoral votes are cast, there is no reason why such a change could not happen. It is certainly possible, only EXTREMELY improbable.
 
And the other arguments are moot. States' rights? Don't exist anymore, were a blight when they did exist.

Remember, at the time the Constitution was being drafted none of the states had to ratify it. The EC was incredibly important for bringing the smaller states in on the side of ratification. As long as we remain the world's first large scale experiment in Federation the EC will be necessary. I like having states, no provinces.
 
I do not advocate abolishing the Electoral College, but reform may be needed to ensure that presidential candidates do not "steal the election" as Gov'nah Bush did in 2000. One way to effectively abolish the EC without actually eliminating it (or amending the constitution) would be to have all the biggest states (i.e. California, Florida, Illinois, New York, Texas) give their electoral votes to the winner of the popular vote (majority or plurality). Because individual states have a say in how their electoral votes are cast, there is no reason why such a change could not happen. It is certainly possible, only EXTREMELY improbable.


1st, GW Bush did not steal the 2000 election [established fact even if you disagree with the election's outcome. period]

2nd, states can, according to the Constitution award their electoral votes only to the candidate who wins the popular vote in that state [or to who wins in that state's congressional districts if it chooses]. Interstate collusion/agreements such as you are suggesting are more than likely unconstitutional. Elections for President & VP are state matters and electoral votes must be awarded/cast based upon results in a given state..
 
Maine and Nebraska

I think the most effective way to reform the EC would be to adopt the method used by Maine and Nebraska on a national scale. Award the "senatorial" electoral votes to the statewide vote leader and the "congressional" electoral votes by districts won. (For DC and very small states nothing changes.) Hopefully, this would be combined with independent bipartisan redistricting commissions leading to competitive districts. That would give candidates a reason to campaign in almost every state, because even in large states (red or blue) some districts would be toss-ups.
But on the original point, I can't image the mess the 1860 election would be without an electoral college.
 
If absolute majority of popular votes is needed, what about A.Lincoln in 1860? He hadn't get absolute majority. Second voting between Lincoln and Douglas?
 
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