Wolfgang wrote:
"Mike McGuire" wrote in message


Good God, you people will swallow anything. The abolition of the Electoral
College doesn't "favor" anyone but individual voters. With or without the
electoral college, places where there are more people have more votes. With
or without the electoral college, states with larger populations exert more
influence becasue there are more people voting.

The underlying principle behind democratic elections is that everyone who is
eligible to vote gets one vote, and whichever candidate gets the majority of
the votes wins the election. Insofar as the Electoral College supports that
fundamental tenet, it is entirely superfluous. We just don't need it. If
it does anything other than facilitate the democratic electoral process, it
subverts the very core of Democracy. And that is EXACTLY what it does.

Wolfgang


It ain't going happen.


What I wrote was not a discussion of the rightness or wrongness of the
electoral college, but rather a discussion of the probabilities of a
change. The situation where change might seem most likely is when there
is a difference between the electoral vote majority and the popular vote
majority. That happened in 2000. Now the usual (but not the only way) a
constitutional amendment is proposed is by a 2/3 vote of both houses of
congress. Given the polarization that existed then, and continues, that
would have been highly improbable. Any time that difference situation
occurs in the forseeable future, I would expect a similar polarization
to stand in the way, never mind the likelihood that there would be at
least 13 states in opposition.

The reason for the electoral college is the fundamental compromise that
got the constitution ratified by the original 13 states, which were all
but sovereign nations at the time. The less populous of them were not
willing to be overwhelmed in a simple plebiscite arangement, so they got
the electoral college and they got two senators per state regardless of
population while the larger states got house representation based on
population. This is all pretty basic stuff, and it's the context in
which a change would be considered. So I'll stand by my expectation, it
ain't going to happen.

Mike