In the last election, Gore won the popular vote, and Bush won the electoral college vote. Which had more weight? Electoral college vote!

And I think that’s wrong.

The electoral college system REMOVES your “say” in who gets elected. Think about it: you could vote for Candidate D, and if enough people in your state voted for Candidate A, then the state will call the Candidate A the winner, even if s/he got less than 51% of the state-wide vote.

To me, that sucks, and I can certainly understand why so many people feel as if their vote doesn’t “matter” or doesn’t “count”.

The electoral college is useful today as it was in the past, although for different reasons.

Today, it helps ensure that the country maintains its cohesiveness by requiring a distribution of popular support to be elected President. This way, the minority interests are also protected by having a say in who gets elected.

Abolishing it just because we are not happy with the results isn’t good enough a reason to do away with it.

Remember, electoral college was only established BECAUSE the founding fathers were terrified of mob rule and didn’t have much faith in the new residents of the new country.

I think by now, the concept of electoral college has outlived its original purpose and usefulness.

From Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution:

“The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

“The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.

“The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: And no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two thirds of the members present.”

Note that there’s an exception if the President of the US has such proceedings against him, but nothing about the Vice-President.

Give me someone like Colbert, or a solid independent who’s fiscally conservative and socially liberal, and I’ll vote for him/her! Colbert could probably run this country better than this administration.

I think his support right now stems largely due to two things: 1) the fact that he supports a lot of the core beliefs of what the Republicans *used* to stand for (such as fiscal responsibility)and 2) he’s very much against the war in Iraq, something that a lot of candidates, Democratic and Republican, aren’t clearly against, or aren’t taking as strong a stand. In that sense, I see his role as similar to Gene McCarthy’s during the 1968 election; a voice of public sentiment over an increasingly unpopular war.

I agree- it’s time to re-examine our electoral system, but I think the first stop has to be the primary system. It’s totally out of whack as it is.

But the immediate problem I see before any other reforms can be done is to get money out of the system. Right now campaign finance is totally corrupt, and any “reform” has either been token or so piecemeal as to be token.