Post by katelou on Feb 26, 2015 12:00:58 GMT -5
Feb 26, 2015 8:13:34 GMT -5 @littleliverpill said:
The electoral college system is archaic and should be abolished. Also, good morning GKU.
Why do you think that? I mean, do you actually want the changes that abolishing the EC would bring or is that a knee-jerk "but it's not fair" reaction from learning about it in high school civics?
The electoral college and its winner-take-all allocation of votes (instead of proportional allocation, meaning for example Missouri has 10 EC votes, 6 go to the guy with 60% of the popular vote, 3 to the guy with 30% and 1 to the guy with 10%) is what has shaped our political system into a two-party system with two parties that are basically pretty centrist. Abolishing the electoral college would create a system where third parties and smaller factions (like the Tea Party) have a lot more power and brings the possibility of runoff elections. A multi-party system works successfully in a fair number of countries (Italy, Germany) and I'm not saying they're good or bad, but it would be a huge change for the U.S.
Another thing the electoral college does is force candidates to seek broad based geographic support. If it were not of the EC system, candidates could basically just campaign in the greater NYC/Philly/Boston/DC and Los Angeles metro areas and a few other major cities and win. No one would have to bother with South Carolina or Oklahoma or basically all the Midwest.
There's more but I have to get to work.
I honestly don't care if people hate the EC if they understand how it works, but I don't think many people do. Most people are all "But your vote counts more in you live in Wyoming!" Which is true. But in our Senate, West Virginia has the same number of senators as California. Is that unfair too? Should we redo the entire constitution?
Just throwing that out there.