Alexander Hamilton and the other founders believed that the Electoral College would insure that only a qualified person would becomes President.
The Founding Fathers believed that with the Electoral College, no person or group of people would be able to manipulate the citizenry.
It was intended as check on an electorate so that might not be duped. The founders also believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of being a group that met only once and thus could not be manipulated over time by foreign governments or others.
Unfortunately foreign governments through back door lobbying groups do influence elections to a certain extent.
The once watch dog of our liberties, our news media have been corrupted as well. Can anyone think of any of the major news networks who report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in vetting the political candidates of either party, not to mention their bias in moderating the debates?
This was obvious in the choice of the so-called moderators (journalists) in all three debates and the subsequent reporting after.
Mark Twain was right; “Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason.”
To a large extent the diaper analogy can be said for the mainstream media as exits today; their objectivity is liken to a pile of dirty diapers.
Until such time as the citizens of the United States can be assured that only those that are legally entitled CITIZENS of this country are able to cast a vote, a situation exists that undermines that fundamental concept. I am at a loss to understand how those that line up for social benefit programs and have their applications entered can NOT obtain identification showing that they are citizens entitled to vote.
The electoral college was created because of what our Founders believed to be inadequacies in the general population (white, males) in the late 18th Century. Memories of the Florida voting debacle only serve to reinforce those two century old fears.
The people have found they can vote themselves a pay check. The country is forever doomed regardless of an electoral college or not.
Although found nowhere in the national archives or known writings of Benjamin Franklin, it is widely accepted that he once said “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
I voted Electoral College for one reason and that is to force presidential candidates to concern themselves with the ENTIRE country. Look at a population map. If the president is elected by popular vote, all he has to do is win the East and West Coasts. There would be no need to concern yourself with Middle America. This would be the answer to Liberals and Left-Leaners.
We are free and seperate states in this the United States of America. In this, each state has the right with in its people to decide what state representative for President should be. The good person from the State of North Carolina can't tell the good person from the State of New York who they want or should represent them in the office of president. As a conservative I would love to have someone from Texas vote for my president in the State of New York, however I think several people I know would be very upset by that. I would like it, but they would be mad as heck...... Leave the Electoral College they way it is...
"Alexander Hamilton and the other founders believed that the Electoral College would insure that only a qualified person would becomes President."
Richard, please warn us when a statement like that is coming, I was eating and almost choked. I agree with your premise and the founding fathers intent, it's just that given our current situation something went terribly wrong.
Independent Journal
Wednesday, March 12, 1788
[Alexander Hamilton]
To the People of the State of New York:
The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says:
"For forms of government let fools contest --
That which is best administered is best," --
yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.
Seems to me that with the Electoral College you are getting the opposite of what you desire - the candidates spend their time in the five states (OH,FL,IA,NV,VA) that could tilt either way, while the rest of the country is ignored.
On the other hand if we eliminate it, the rest of the country will look like New York City, a place with large concentrations of voters.
They will dictate how we will live.
Can you imagine a New York Cabbie, regardless how good his intentions telling a Western New York farmer how to plant his fields, or can you say “No more 16 sodas”.
If the Gallop and Rasmussen polls are close to correct, there is a strong possibility that Mitt Romney will win the popular vote by 2-3% and still loose the electoral college. There is also a possibility for the first time since 1824 that there was an electoral college tie at 269-269 which would leave the election in the hands of the house of representatives.
I have always been against changing the electoral college for many of the same reasons that Richard has stated, however, this day of instant reporting, real time media and gross misrepresentation by the two major parties, I have cause to rethink my position on this subject.
It may only be a thought, but imagine if we had fifty debates, in 50 states, with all qualified candidates in each state on stage in lieu of political ads every 10 minutes in swing states. Think about that, no false advertising, no blatant personal attacks on air because in a debate format that wouldn't go over, an election cycle that ran a mere 60 or 90 days rather than a year or more and words from the candidates mouths rather than from political hacks and pundits. Just a thought.
I didn't read Hamilton above closely, but what I read of it -- seems to me the electoral college does not operate as intended.
Yes, we don't have a popular national vote for president, but we do have a state-by-state popular vote.
We don't select electoral representatives to then make the decision for us. We vote and then bind a whole group of electorals to the popular vote. That seems to me to defeat the republican ideal of representation.
Alexander Hamilton and the
Alexander Hamilton and the other founders believed that the Electoral College would insure that only a qualified person would becomes President.
The Founding Fathers believed that with the Electoral College, no person or group of people would be able to manipulate the citizenry.
It was intended as check on an electorate so that might not be duped. The founders also believed that the Electoral College had the advantage of being a group that met only once and thus could not be manipulated over time by foreign governments or others.
Unfortunately foreign governments through back door lobbying groups do influence elections to a certain extent.
The once watch dog of our liberties, our news media have been corrupted as well. Can anyone think of any of the major news networks who report the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in vetting the political candidates of either party, not to mention their bias in moderating the debates?
This was obvious in the choice of the so-called moderators (journalists) in all three debates and the subsequent reporting after.
Mark Twain was right; “Politicians are like diapers; they need to be changed often and for the same reason.”
To a large extent the diaper analogy can be said for the mainstream media as exits today; their objectivity is liken to a pile of dirty diapers.
Thank Providence for alternate news sources.
Until such time as the
Until such time as the citizens of the United States can be assured that only those that are legally entitled CITIZENS of this country are able to cast a vote, a situation exists that undermines that fundamental concept. I am at a loss to understand how those that line up for social benefit programs and have their applications entered can NOT obtain identification showing that they are citizens entitled to vote.
The electoral college was created because of what our Founders believed to be inadequacies in the general population (white, males) in the late 18th Century. Memories of the Florida voting debacle only serve to reinforce those two century old fears.
The people have found they
The people have found they can vote themselves a pay check. The country is forever doomed regardless of an electoral college or not.
Although found nowhere in the national archives or known writings of Benjamin Franklin, it is widely accepted that he once said “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
http://chuck-bitingmytongue.blogspot.com/2008/07/when-people-find-they-…
I voted Electoral College for
I voted Electoral College for one reason and that is to force presidential candidates to concern themselves with the ENTIRE country. Look at a population map. If the president is elected by popular vote, all he has to do is win the East and West Coasts. There would be no need to concern yourself with Middle America. This would be the answer to Liberals and Left-Leaners.
We are free and seperate
We are free and seperate states in this the United States of America. In this, each state has the right with in its people to decide what state representative for President should be. The good person from the State of North Carolina can't tell the good person from the State of New York who they want or should represent them in the office of president. As a conservative I would love to have someone from Texas vote for my president in the State of New York, however I think several people I know would be very upset by that. I would like it, but they would be mad as heck...... Leave the Electoral College they way it is...
"Alexander Hamilton and the
"Alexander Hamilton and the other founders believed that the Electoral College would insure that only a qualified person would becomes President."
Richard, please warn us when a statement like that is coming, I was eating and almost choked. I agree with your premise and the founding fathers intent, it's just that given our current situation something went terribly wrong.
Jeff, Take care and be
Jeff,
Take care and be forewarned!!
I give you the words of Alexander Hamilton.
The Federalist No. 68
The Mode of Electing the President
Independent Journal
Wednesday, March 12, 1788
[Alexander Hamilton]
To the People of the State of New York:
The mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.
It was desirable that the sense of the people should operate in the choice of the person to whom so important a trust was to be confided. This end will be answered by committing the right of making it, not to any preestablished body, but to men chosen by the people for the special purpose, and at the particular conjuncture.
It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.
It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder. This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief. The choice of several, to form an intermediate body of electors, will be much less apt to convulse the community with any extraordinary or violent movements, than the choice of one who was himself to be the final object of the public wishes. And as the electors, chosen in each State, are to assemble and vote in the State in which they are chosen, this detached and divided situation will expose them much less to heats and ferments, which might be communicated from them to the people, than if they were all to be convened at one time, in one place.
Nothing was more to be desired than that every practicable obstacle should be opposed to cabal, intrigue, and corruption. These most deadly adversaries of republican government might naturally have been expected to make their approaches from more than one querter, but chiefly from the desire in foreign powers to gain an improper ascendant in our councils. How could they better gratify this, than by raising a creature of their own to the chief magistracy of the Union? But the convention have guarded against all danger of this sort, with the most provident and judicious attention. They have not made the appointment of the President to depend on any preexisting bodies of men, who might be tampered with beforehand to prostitute their votes; but they have referred it in the first instance to an immediate act of the people of America, to be exerted in the choice of persons for the temporary and sole purpose of making the appointment. And they have excluded from eligibility to this trust, all those who from situation might be suspected of too great devotion to the President in office. No senator, representative, or other person holding a place of trust or profit under the United States, can be of the numbers of the electors. Thus without corrupting the body of the people, the immediate agents in the election will at least enter upon the task free from any sinister bias. Their transient existence, and their detached situation, already taken notice of, afford a satisfactory prospect of their continuing so, to the conclusion of it. The business of corruption, when it is to embrace so considerable a number of men, requires time as well as means. Nor would it be found easy suddenly to embark them, dispersed as they would be over thirteen States, in any combinations founded upon motives, which though they could not properly be denominated corrupt, might yet be of a nature to mislead them from their duty.
Another and no less important desideratum was, that the Executive should be independent for his continuance in office on all but the people themselves. He might otherwise be tempted to sacrifice his duty to his complaisance for those whose favor was necessary to the duration of his official consequence. This advantage will also be secured, by making his re-election to depend on a special body of representatives, deputed by the society for the single purpose of making the important choice.
All these advantages will happily combine in the plan devised by the convention; which is, that the people of each State shall choose a number of persons as electors, equal to the number of senators and representatives of such State in the national government, who shall assemble within the State, and vote for some fit person as President. Their votes, thus given, are to be transmitted to the seat of the national government, and the person who may happen to have a majority of the whole number of votes will be the President. But as a majority of the votes might not always happen to centre in one man, and as it might be unsafe to permit less than a majority to be conclusive, it is provided that, in such a contingency, the House of Representatives shall select out of the candidates who shall have the five highest number of votes, the man who in their opinion may be best qualified for the office.
The process of election affords a moral certainty, that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications. Talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity, may alone suffice to elevate a man to the first honors in a single State; but it will require other talents, and a different kind of merit, to establish him in the esteem and confidence of the whole Union, or of so considerable a portion of it as would be necessary to make him a successful candidate for the distinguished office of President of the United States. It will not be too strong to say, that there will be a constant probability of seeing the station filled by characters pre-eminent for ability and virtue. And this will be thought no inconsiderable recommendation of the Constitution, by those who are able to estimate the share which the executive in every government must necessarily have in its good or ill administration. Though we cannot acquiesce in the political heresy of the poet who says:
"For forms of government let fools contest --
That which is best administered is best," --
yet we may safely pronounce, that the true test of a good government is its aptitude and tendency to produce a good administration.
The Vice-President is to be chosen in the same manner with the President; with this difference, that the Senate is to do, in respect to the former, what is to be done by the House of Representatives, in respect to the latter.
The appointment of an extraordinary person, as Vice-President, has been objected to as superfluous, if not mischievous. It has been alleged, that it would have been preferable to have authorized the Senate to elect out of their own body an officer answering that description. But two considerations seem to justify the ideas of the convention in this respect. One is, that to secure at all times the possibility of a definite resolution of the body, it is necessary that the President should have only a casting vote. And to take the senator of any State from his seat as senator, to place him in that of President of the Senate, would be to exchange, in regard to the State from which he came, a constant for a contingent vote. The other consideration is, that as the Vice-President may occasionally become a substitute for the President, in the supreme executive magistracy, all the reasons which recommend the mode of election prescribed for the one, apply with great if not with equal force to the manner of appointing the other. It is remarkable that in this, as in most other instances, the objection which is made would lie against the constitution of this State. We have a Lieutenant-Governor, chosen by the people at large, who presides in the Senate, and is the constitutional substitute for the Governor, in casualties similar to those which would authorize the Vice-President to exercise the authorities and discharge the duties of the President.
GREAT comment Richard.
GREAT comment Richard.
Thank you John, however Mark
Thank you John, however Mark Twain deserves all of the credit. Being less clever than he I would have left out the diaper part entirely.
Seems to me that with the
Seems to me that with the Electoral College you are getting the opposite of what you desire - the candidates spend their time in the five states (OH,FL,IA,NV,VA) that could tilt either way, while the rest of the country is ignored.
On the other hand if we
On the other hand if we eliminate it, the rest of the country will look like New York City, a place with large concentrations of voters.
They will dictate how we will live.
Can you imagine a New York Cabbie, regardless how good his intentions telling a Western New York farmer how to plant his fields, or can you say “No more 16 sodas”.
I say Bloomberg’s diaper needs to be changed.
If the Gallop and Rasmussen
If the Gallop and Rasmussen polls are close to correct, there is a strong possibility that Mitt Romney will win the popular vote by 2-3% and still loose the electoral college. There is also a possibility for the first time since 1824 that there was an electoral college tie at 269-269 which would leave the election in the hands of the house of representatives.
I have always been against changing the electoral college for many of the same reasons that Richard has stated, however, this day of instant reporting, real time media and gross misrepresentation by the two major parties, I have cause to rethink my position on this subject.
It may only be a thought, but imagine if we had fifty debates, in 50 states, with all qualified candidates in each state on stage in lieu of political ads every 10 minutes in swing states. Think about that, no false advertising, no blatant personal attacks on air because in a debate format that wouldn't go over, an election cycle that ran a mere 60 or 90 days rather than a year or more and words from the candidates mouths rather than from political hacks and pundits. Just a thought.
I didn't read Hamilton above
I didn't read Hamilton above closely, but what I read of it -- seems to me the electoral college does not operate as intended.
Yes, we don't have a popular national vote for president, but we do have a state-by-state popular vote.
We don't select electoral representatives to then make the decision for us. We vote and then bind a whole group of electorals to the popular vote. That seems to me to defeat the republican ideal of representation.
Could you imagine the
Could you imagine the campaign costs it would take to visit the other states.
Yes Peter, probaly 75% less
Yes Peter, probaly 75% less than the TV ad buys, when you think about it. Remember I said in lieu of TV ad buys.
No, they would run
No, they would run commercials in every state. The electoral "season" would last 3 years instead of 2.