Just a bit more on the election --

[capri0mni]

This was originally posted as an answer to a question here, on johnkerry04, but I thought overseas folks on my f'list might be interested.

When we vote, we're not actually voting for the president, we're voting for the Electors. An Elector is like a Senator or Congressman -- someone who represents the people and votes on their behalf. And each state gets one Elector for each Congressman and each Senator. So Virginia (where I am, now) has 11 Congressmen and 2 Senators = 13 electoral votes.

This seemed like a good idea at the time because back in the 18th century, it was so hard for people to travel that they rarely lived more than 5 miles away from where they were born their entire lives. So you elected a representative to travel for you, and they will later meet (in December, I think), and cast their votes.

Also, the founding fathers worried that the everyday people weren't educated enough to make the final decision for themselves. So they thought it would be better if more educated folk did the actual voting.

But just like Congressmen and Senators, Electors are fully within their rights to change their minds when it comes to casting votes (four years ago, one elector for D.C. abstained from voting as a protest for the fact that D.C. isn't allowed to have a senator or congressman).

Yesterday, after listening to a talk show about the electoral college, I got this idea: Since we're voting for the Electors, it's they who should do most of the campaigning, rather than the presidential candidates (though the presidential candidates could make a few star appearences). How can it be that we're voting for representatives, and we don't even know their names, or how they were selected? Besides, that way, the presidential candidates would each get their message out in every congressional district in the nation -- without spending millions of dollars on travel, criss-crossing the country to visit only a fraction of the states. And that way, presidents could stay at the White House, overseeing important affairs of state, and Senators, Congressmen and Governors could stay at their jobs, too...
---
Earlier this afternoon, I had these thoughts: (voiced in #DWC before this):

It seems the people who cast majority votes were voting primarily out of fear -- fear of terrorists, fear of Americans who're different, etc. So -- rather than yelling at them for being wrong, the rest of us should figure out how to talk about important issues in a way that addresses people's fears without pandering to them. We have to reframe the discussion... and we should do it over the next two years, in time for the next rotation of congressional elections.

A daunting task, but we're smart, and optimistic, and, as Dad pointed out to me in the wee early morning, we're the ones with a better grasp of the facts.... We're also 49% of the country...

Still, we don't have time to wallow in anger, regret, or blame. Let's get to work!

Comments

[redstarrobot.livejournal.com]

On a side note, there is actually another reason we have the electoral college - it's the same reason we have both the House and the Senate; it weights the importance of less populous states, so their concerns aren't overlooked in campaigning, and a President isn't elected on the basis of what New York, Chicago, LA, and San Francisco want. (I would argue that there's a flaw in it somewhere if solidly blue or red states never see their concerns addressed, and get by on the odd soundbite or two, while swing states get appearance after appearance and advert after advert - I'm sure they'd like the relief as much as they rest of the country would like the attention.)

Now I'm wondering if the Electoral College could actually be overturned by legal challenge, on the grounds that it treats the vote of someone from a populous state as less important than that of someone from a less populous state... New Jersey has 15 electoral votes, and Alaska, 3. Which means NJ has 13 Representatives and Alaska has 1, for a population difference of 13:1. New Jersey has 1.15 electoral votes per unit of population, and Alaska has 3 electoral votes per unit of population, which means the vote of someone from Alaska is counted 2.6 times as much as someone from New Jersey's.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, the premise of protecting the minority from the whims of the majority is something I can generally get behind (for example, gays and the disabled are in the minority, but that doesn't mean it's okay to lock us up because the majority suffer from squickitus).

However, unlike in the 18th century, people's allegiences are no longer tied (as much) to physical places, anymore, and so protecting the minority no longer has very much to do with protecting low density populations.

Plus, thanks to the "Winner take all" aspect of the electoral college means that certain states get labeled as "solidly blue," "solidly red," or "Swing." Candidates have very little interest in either of the first two catagories, and so states in those regions get far less debate (or even mudslinging) on any of the issues -- and so minds there are rarely changed. Virginia, for example, hasn't voted Democratic since 1964. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle.

The Democratic party here in this part of the state was pretty much asleep at the wheel -- Kerry did do a couple of visits here before he got his nomination, and ran a few ads right around the times of the two conventions, and that was it. Still, that was remarkable that he did anything. How, in the Name of Hermes, is that going to sway voters to change their minds?

Yet, because lower density states are not likely to abolish the Electoral College, now, I think our best chance to change the system is to change how the college is used. But I don't know how to get that process started.