Shouldn't we be worrying about...

[Dodi Schultz]

...the way a party--EITHER party--can win the vote but lose the election?

The odds of its happening are uncomfortably high, according to New Yorker writer Hendrik Hertzberg. Read his "Three Out of Eight Ain't Good"; it's the entry for January 7th at

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/hendrikhertzberg

--DS

[Lindsey]

...the way a party--EITHER party--can win the vote but lose the election?
I've been complaining about the Electoral College system for a long time now, but short of a complete electoral disaster (and I'm not sure how it could get much more disastrous than the 2000 election), there is just not going to be sufficient groundswell for a change. It would take a Constitutional amendment, and that would require a large number of small states to vote to give up the disproportionate weight they currently enjoy in electoral politics.

I think the best hope we have for a change, at least in the near term, is the agreement that I think Hertzberg was referring to, where states join a pact to cast their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote, agreement to take effect when enough states have signed on to constitute an electoral majority.

The Electoral College system has been a problem almost from the beginning. If you haven't read it, I recommend Bruce Ackerman's The Failure of the Founding Fathers (http://www.amazon.com/Failure-Founding-Fathers-Jefferson-Presidential/dp/0674018664), an account of the election of 1800, which nearly ended in civil war thanks to the shortcomings of the Constitutionally-mandated electoral system. That near-fiasco did result in an amendment to address some of the system's shortcomings, but it was only a minimal change, and really didn't fix the underlying problem, which is that the Electoral College system is, at its heart, anti-democratic.

--Lindsey

[Dodi Schultz]

I've been stewing, too, about the disproportionate power wielded by some states. But I'm not sure that the Founding Dads are that much to blame. There was just no way for them to envision the huge disproportion in population and especially in density between most of the Eastern States (which were, of course, ALL of them then) and areas like, say, Wyoming.

The result has been, IMO, a lot of taxation without representation. And we know what THAT is.

--DS

[Lindsey]

There was just no way for them to envision the huge disproportion in population and especially in density between most of the Eastern States (which were, of course, ALL of them then) and areas like, say, Wyoming.
Well, I don't know -- there were large states and small states even when there were just 13 of them. But the real problem is that the whole Electoral College mechanism is something that was slapped together hurriedly at the last minute so that they could wrap up the convention. If they had given a little more time and thought to it, they might have created a better mechanism. The one they put together has never worked exactly the way they had envisioned.

--Lindsey

[Judy G. Russell]

I've been stewing, too, about the disproportionate power wielded by some states. But I'm not sure that the Founding Dads are that much to blame. There was just no way for them to envision the huge disproportion in population and especially in density between most of the Eastern States (which were, of course, ALL of them then) and areas like, say, Wyoming.Welll... I'm not so sure about that. The difference even in 1777 between Virginia and Delaware or between Massachusetts and Maine was pretty extreme. Take a look at the graphics as to population distribution here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_the_United_States).