commentaries

I believe Mr Tice had a thoughtful article about why his perceived advantages outweigh his perceived disadvantages. Somehow I think Mr Jorgenson may have taken the exact opposite view when Pres Bush won with the electoral college. Less rant and more listening is often beneficial for the whole country.

Until we as a nation take the right to vote and the ability to vote as cardinal principle, the electoral college appropriately serves as a buffer to a whole host of anomolies. Don't believe it, ask yourself this, do you want your vote to be equal in value to those in a state where no election integrity exists or in a state where voters are suppressed based on their zipcode?

"The Electoral College has the opposite effect of what Tice claims. It doesn't force candidates to broaden their appeal. It causes them to ignore wide swatches of the electorate." ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mr. Jorgenson is dead on balls accurate with that statement. When you have a ridiculous legal requirement that the winner of the state's popular vote gets 100% of the electoral votes, you completely strip the underdog candidate of even TRYING to win any votes in that state. If you have a system where the national popular vote wins the election, then no candidate can afford to skip ANY state. Republicans would have the incentive to campaign in california to try to squeeze a few extra conservative votes out of the electorat, because who knows if those few votes will be the ones to put them over the top nationally. Just getting 30% instead of 25% just might do it when combined with getting 40% instead of 35% in say Washington state. Besides, the electoral college is severely biased toward democrats right now, because it gives an unfair advantage to states with high urban populations, which are always democrat. Why should all those people in pennsylvania that obama called ... "clinging to their guns and religion" ... be completely screwed over by philly, pittsburgh, and harrisburg. My first preference is that there should be no electoral college, but my second choice is that if there has to be one, then the votes should be apportioned according to the percentage of the votes for each candidate.

The college started out as a very practical matter when travel was tough and the founding fathers felt the US President should be elected by the states. It continues today because politicians LIKE spending their effort in just a few swing states.

One would not be hard pressed to figure which side of the vote Mr. Jorgenson was on this time around.

"It doesn't force candidates to broaden their appeal. It causes them to ignore wide swatches of the electorate."... That is one of the more amusing comments by the electoral college abolitionists, and it has always had this fatal flaw -- Why would anyone running for office spend time speaking to people in an area where a majority of the people in that area already agree with them and will vote for them? It's nonsense. The candidates will still only go to areas where there are people who are undecided and who might vote for them... They will use demographics to find the areas where an appeal will draw maximum results relative to expenditure - and with limited time and resources, they will be in almost the same areas as today... This far fetched idea that removing the electoral college will cause a Democrat to campaign more in California or a Republican to campaign more in Georgia and Mississippi is pure fantasy - it is just not effective to do it.

I believe Mr Tice had a thoughtful article about why his perceived advantages outweigh his perceived disadvantages. Somehow I think Mr Jorgenson may have taken the exact opposite view when Pres Bush won with the electoral college. Less rant and more listening is often beneficial for the whole country.

Ask some Constitutional scholars if the office of President was intended to be filled by a popular or majority vote.

why not split up the electoral votes? Why is it all or nothing in a state? If one candidate wins a region, they should get that region. Use the Representatives lines to make the regions. Minnesota might been split 5 to 3. Instead of all to the President.

Where was this author when AL GORE defeated George Bush in the popular vote but lost by 2 votes in the Electoral College?