Electoral vs. Popular Vote

Democracy is not meant to be a protracted legal process.

Yes, we need to replace the Electoral College system with a popular vote.

Do we want the illusion of equality or real equality? (1 person) + (1 vote)= equality.

No, it should just be adjusted.

Without an electoral college, we would be placing the seat of one of the highest powers in our country directly in the hands of the people - will people take this responsibility seriously or will they misuse the power? Maybe Gallagher will run? It's impossible to tell without trying it out, but I don't think the American public is ready for that. We've been trained a certain way and it will be an extremely harsh change, one that probably would not end well.

minoritys in ademocracy should not impose their will up on the majority regardless of the location within the boundarys of said democracy (minoritys are protected by the wording and intent in our constitution)

Think of how smart the average person is. Half of all people are dumber than that (George Carlin-I think).

Do you want babbling fools who are swayed by the rhetoric of the greedy politicians and the corporations that back them up to choose a "leader"?

If we can improve on the electoral college and have intelligent, thinking people who spend time researching those who run for office decide our elections, then everything will run a lot more smoothly, and hopefully for the betterment of mankind.

Why should we re-write the constitution? At the same time, President Bush won the 2004 election by the widest number of votes in history... and is now allegedly the least liked president in history. This just shows that the American electorate is insane.

They could reform it to the popular vote and say how they had made everything more fair but

you will still be choosing between a turd sandwich and a giant douche.

I don't know that it really matters. Candidates are always going to focus on the "battleground" states whether they are fighting for electoral votes or individual votes. States that are solidly red or solidly blue will continue to be ignored. I haven't seen a meaningful presidential candidate seriously try to earn my vote in a long time.

It is my understanding that the electoral college system was established to prevent the uneducated masses of the time from electing a president based on the candidate's appeal and focus on topics irrelevant to governing a newly founded government.

Fortunately, our education system, though questionable in mathematics and sciences, has seriously hammered knowledge of the American political system. The educated are far more likely to vote than the uneducated.

Our young people—and old people, for that matter—are far more educated than the people were at the time the electoral college was established.

So, with this in mind, I say that it is time for the electoral college to be abolished.

It looks like the argument for electoral system is that people in rural areas would get ignored and they wouldn't be fairly represented. But if they cast a vote, they are fairly represented, period. Why would you give their vote more power? What's so special about the special interests of people living in small towns that means their vote should be worth more? Why give more voting power to this minority in particular - and not any other minority, like senior citizens over age 80, for example? Most people just accept that people in rural areas should have the power of their vote inflated, and I want to know why.

Yes. The landscape of America has changed and evolved into diverse pockets of people types. To allow one state more electoral votes than another handicaps voters within lesser states. This also encourages people not to turn out, because they assume their state will automatically go with red or blue historically. Its very polarizing.

Go popular.

There are an unbelievable number of angles in which one can tackle this question.

My initial response would be to change the American election process from the electoral college to the popular vote for the following reason: is my fellow citizen's vote more important because he lives in a state with a larger population? The answer to that question should be no. If all men are created equal, it should matter whether you are voting democrat in Alaska or Republican in Ohio, nevertheless, we all know which state will be the foreground of presidential campaigners.

Another, and more important, question is whether it's the United States responsibility to create a voting system that is not open to tampering. It has been too easily proven that Diebold machines are just plain faulty. If you can't trust you vote to stay true, then why even vote in the first place?