Very well put, and I DO understand the intended role of the electoral college,
the objective of balance. And yes, there is a parallel to the bicameral nature
of British (and hence Canadian) parliamentary democracy. I think it is a bit
anachronistic at this point but I wouldn't expend a lot of energy arguing its
usefulness, as there a lot more important things on which to focus.
My personal preference for parliamentary form of government because you vote
(at least to a greater degree) for a =party=, not a specific person forr PM,
hence to a great extent you are voting party policy/platform more than you do
in the US system. The fact that the executive can be of one party and the
legislative bodies ruled by a majority of opposing parties leads to more
gridlock, IMO.
Earl
*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********
On 7/2/2004 at 1:49 AM John A. Lind wrote:
>At 09:20 PM 7/1/04, Earl Dunbar wrote:
>
>>And guess what, no Electoral "College" (haven't any of those clowns
>earned
>>their degrees yet?) to ensconce a President that the people didn't vote
>for.
>
>At the risk of starting something . . . I will state the caveat up
>front. This is simply a statement of the arguments, not a defense for
>them.
>
>The Electoral College is intended (by the Constitution) to have a balance
>similar to that which is reflected by the two legislative houses. The
>House of Representatives is based upon a "one man one vote" principle to
>represent voters more directly. It's based on population and each
>Congressional District is supposed to have approximately the same
>population. OTOH, the Senate is intended to represent the states equally
>without regard to population distribution or land area. Overtly, it was
>intended to prevent the few largest, most populous states exerting
>complete
>control unchecked, at least partially reining them in.
>
>Largely unstated publicly when the Constitution was written, it was also
>the Deep South's method for protecting slavery from being abolished by the
>more populous North. The Constitution would never have been ratified
>without these compromises that give some weight to each state and its
>interest on an equal basis with all the other staes. Slavery was a hot
>issue from the get-go.
>
>Various compromises were made during the first 80+ years regarding state
>admissions including Mason-Dixon and the Missouri Compromise . . . Kansas
>"Free" and Missouri "Slave" notwithstanding the Mason-Dixon Line; for
>quite
>a few years a northern state could not be admitted without a new Deep
>South
>state also being admitted at the same time; the Deep South Senators would
>block the admission.
>
>In the original Constitution, Senators were elected to the Senate by the
>state legislature. Whoever controlled the state legislature sent their
>boy
>to the Senate when a seat was due to be filled for another 6-year
>term. This changed to direct popular vote with the 17th Amendment in
>1912. In the event of a vacancy before the end of the 6-year term (death,
>resignation, etc.), the state's governor appoints a Senator to fill that
>vacancy until an election is held for that seat (in accordance with the
>state's method for doing so).
>
>The number of Electors each state has for the Electoral College matches
>the
>number of Congressmen *and* Senators the state has. This carries into it
>the same overt purpose cited above for the U.S. Senate . . . to provide at
>least some counterbalance to the few large and most populous states. Thus
>the makeup of the Electoral College. Two additional nuances about having
>an Electoral College versus simply gathering together the Congressmen and
>Senators. Senate seats are 6-year terms with 1/3rd re-elected every two
>years and both seats from a single state must be staggered. The Electoral
>College is elected every four years allowing the state's voters to make a
>decision that might be different from that which would be made by a
>Senator
>(originally chosen by the state's legislature) who was seated four years
>previously. In addition, from a practical political strategy the
>President
>and Vice President will likely *never* be from the same state. The
>ballots
>for President and Vice President are cast by the Electoral College
>separately and the Electors *must* cast at least one of these ballots for
>someone that is *not* from their own state (read the 12th Amendment).
>
>Is it complex? Most certainly. The underlying reasons, right or wrong,
>aren't understood very well by most voters, especially the basic
>philosophy
>reaching back into the original Constitutional Convention that wrote it,
>that the Federal Government should represent not only the individual
>voters' interests, but the states' (and in some aspects the states'
>elected
>governments) as a whole also. For Good or Ill, and all its warts and
>imperfections, it does that with (oft imperfect) balance. The occasions
>in
>which the popular vote has a majority for one "ticket" and the Electoral
>College balloting results in a majority for the another are relatively
>rare. If you study these "upside down" election results, you will find
>they were close in popular vote and ended up that way due to the slight
>extra weight given to the smaller, less populous states with fewer
>Congressional seats that were carried in larger number by the winnning
>"ticket." Again, right or wrong, I believe the Founding Fathers
>deliberately set it up that way, so that in a very, very close popular
>vote, the States' interests with each state having parity with all the
>others without regard to population size, would prevail.
>
>Again, I'm not trying to defend this one way or the other . . . simply to
>explain *why* it's the way it is today. I have my opinions about the
>matter but won't express them here.
>
>BTW, if the U.S. Congress and Senate are set up in a manner that
>individuals' intrests are at lest partially balanced by states' interests,
>I belive there is a similar parallel in British Parliament's bicameral
>structure. Its two houses are intended to strike a balance between the
>individual Commoners' interests and that of the Crown and his/her landed
>and titled "cronies" (a bad word for it but I'm going to leave it that
>way). The difference is what the bicameral structures are intended to
>better balance.
>
>-- John Lind
>
>
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