What becomes of Electoral College after electing the president.

tomder55

Electoral College (United States) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

basically they never meet as a group nationally . They are selected by the various states and they meet as a representatives of the states on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December to cast their ballots for President and VP.
Once the election is decided their job is done and they disband.

BABRAM

They go home, turn on the evening news, and hope like hell that popular vote validates the archaic electoral system. Four years later they come out of hiding and give it another shot.

tomder55

So you want an Amendment to fundamentally change the voting procedure that has worked well since the founding ?

BABRAM

Worked well? When in the 1800's when reporting was done by horseback?

tomder55

Bobby ;States decide how electors are chosen . If a State chooses to they can select them in proportion to the popular vote. But I would not agree to scrapping a system where the States control the process. If it was strictly by popular vote then candidates could ignore the small states completely and cater exclusively to the interests of the large population centers.

BABRAM

Last years news, however the article is relative to the subject.

Progressive States Network | National Popular Vote Moves Forward

"National Popular Vote would ensure that only the candidate who receives the most votes nationally would be president. Under the current system, presidential candidates are forced to focus their campaigns on only a handful of closely divided "battleground" states to capture the states' electoral votes. As a result, nearly two-thirds of the states are irrelevant in the presidential race. Because many voters feel their votes do not count, especially if they do not live in a battleground state, the present system lowers voter turnout.

With National Popular Vote, however, every vote counts because a states' electoral votes would only go to the candidate who wins the national popular vote. For example, progressives living in Texas -- and conservatives in Massachusetts -- have an uphill battle in terms of delivering their states' electoral votes to their favored candidate. Under the National Popular Vote system, however, their votes would be very important because they would count towards the overall national popular vote totals which would decide the election, rather than the archaic Electoral College system.

Implementing National Popular Vote can be done without a constitutional amendment. Instead, each state legislature can approve a "national compact" to cast its electoral vote for the winner of the national popular vote. Each bill would then contain a provision that it only goes into effect when enough states have similar legislation in place to account for a majority of electoral votes."

tomder55

correct ;as long as the states legislatures determined how the electors are selected I have no problem with it although I prefer the winner take all system. In a national popular vote the candidates could still avoid campaigning in most of the states and concentrate on the high population centers. Rural voters would be shafted . That is what founders like Jefferson and Madison most feared .

BABRAM

Yup! And every State is going to vote in the general election so we can have a "United States" president; one country. Personally, on this issue, I find that for all their foresight, men like "Jefferson" and "Madison" most likely had only notions as to eventual migrations, or the technology of today. Rural voters should not be given any more significance due to populace density regardless of where others reside in larger concentrations. This in effect would be a truer representation of equality.