The only use the EC could have as a... (cut)
*Was Donal eliminated by the KGB in the middle of writing a sentence ?
O.K.
On Thu, Dec 15, 2016 at 1:58 PM, Donal McEvoy <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Lawrence, thank you for these comments.
I'm not in any position to question the history around the 'electoral
college'. I also think we can, in my case, put sour grapes aside. As it
happens the current system seems to benefit Republicans rather than
Democrats in relation to the Presidency, and this may be somehow systemic,
or it may be more or less a contingency that might alter.
If sour grapes is raised against the other side, then 'sweet grapes' must
be raised against Republicans who have benefited from the EC system: but
both sweet and sour grapes are really irrelevant to the merits (unless we
argue, and this can be argued, that a systemic bias towards a
Republican/small government outcome is to be preferred in constitutional
terms). [However, I tend to think a right-wing demogogue or right-wing
anti-democratic movement is more likely to succeed in the US than left-wing
ones, though this may be only because I misunderstood "The Manchurian
Candidate".]
The underlying 'first issue' is whether an electoral college system is
better than an election by popular vote. There is a second question (if we
conclude that a popular vote would be better) of whether the degree to
which a popular vote has greater merits is such that it merits
constitutional reform - and this second question may be taken purely as a
question of principle or also as a question of pragmatics (i.e. is it worth
seeking such reform presently).
It seems to me that the 'first question' should be approached on the basis
of asking 'Were we setting up a system today, based on what would be best
for the foreseeable future, would we opt for an EC or direct vote for
Presidency?' This cuts the legs out from under anachronistic arguments
based on judging considerations given how valid they were when the EC
system was introduced.
Of course, even here a proper analysis needs to avoid misrepresenting the
facts. One important fact is that Presidential elections are now
party-based - with 'party-politics' taken as axiomatic in a way that might
have appalled the Founding Fathers. We can hardly make a proper assessment
without now taking the role of parties into account.
Nevertheless, where is the advantage of the EC system over direct vote in
terms of the given of 'party-politics'? Or on other grounds?
Some points raised in support of the status quo can be easily enough
dismissed: we can hardly defend the status quo/EC system by saying its fair
because the Democrats knew it was the system and geared themselves to it.
That is not any kind of argument on the merits - at best it's a tacit
appeal to the validity of the status quo because it is understood and taken
as the status quo. We could have continued to defend *Dred Scott v
Sandford *this way had not reform overcome this as the status quo - no
doubt, until the law was changed, everybody geared themselves to *Dred
Scott*.
It may be true to say that many governments are not elected by direct vote
- this is true in the UK where MPs are elected by direct vote but the
government of the day is not. But the President is not a 'government' but
only one pillar of goverment - and this makes the issue very different, as
does the fact that we are taking about the election of a single individual.
No one suggests that in the UK the election of individual MPs should not be
by direct vote but by voting for an electoral college - and the suggestion
would be rightly dismissed as introducing an unnecessary and/or
undemocratic buffer between citizen and their elected representative.
Let us accept that citizens are mostly not wise or as wise as they should
be. Why is the EC any wiser (are they flown in out-of-state)? There is an
obvious flaw in the argument that the EC protects the ordinary citizen from
their own lack of knowledge - first, if the EC is now a constitutional
window-dressing that follows the popular vote in its state (as appears the
case: we could get rid of the EC and simply keep the EC numbers) then the
EC cannot be providing any mechanism for over-riding lack of wisdom in that
popular vote. Second, were we to conceive the EC acting against the popular
vote in the state, on what basis would it do so with greater knowledge?
Without cogent answers to these questions it is specious that the EC system
provides any better mechanism than direct vote in terms of achieved wisdom
- what it does do is render votes of unequal weight across the US for a
position to which only a single person can be elected, and where that
person's role is in relation governance of all states equally and at a
federal level. This seems highly anomalous.
There are anomalies within the UK system. The 'government of the day' may
have less - and typically has less - than half the popular vote - but it
typically will not have less than half the MPs in Parliament supporting it
i.e. it cannot do its business without a working majority in Parliament.
This anomaly is less egregious than the US one and not really comparable -
it arises because there is not a vote directly in the UK for any national
government but only for constituency MPs. But the US Presidential election
is surely best understood in terms of being an overall national vote and
not by treating the President as a state-by-state candidate who acquires
the role by acquiring most states [cp. constituencies]. The President does
not represent the interests of any particular state in the way a UK MP is
rightly expected to represent the particular interests of their
constituency.
To say 'Can't be bothered enough to seek change' is one thing but to say
the current EC system has greater merits than a direct vote for President
is another - and, GOP advantage aside, it is still unclear to me what these
greater merits presently are.
D
L
The only use the EC could have as a
------------------------------
*From:* Lawrence Helm <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
*To:* lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
*Sent:* Wednesday, 14 December 2016, 15:29
*Subject:* [lit-ideas] Re: Pertaining to the U.S. Electoral College
Chris Bruce, not German but living in Germany, brought this up a few weeks
ago and inspired me to read Henry Adams history of the first term of
Jefferson's administration. A lot was posted during this discussion. It
ended, perhaps coincidentally after finding a web site that listed all the
forms of government in the world. Not as many as you might think choose
their leader by direct popular vote. Germany it turned out uses an
electoral system. Britain where the Guardian originates is a Monarchy.
One might object that the Monarch does not rule Britain today, but the
person who does isn't chosen by direct vote either. More words can be used
to describe the intricacies of all these forms, but one thing we can see is
that once a government is formed it is very difficult to change it. The
electoral system as we see in Henry Adams history was one of the devices
used to encourage the smaller states to join the Union. At the time there
was nothing but conversation available to influence their decisions. And
it wasn't the Southern States who needed to be influenced. Virginia was
the most influential state back then. The first four presidents were from
Virginia. The Southern States were interested in forming a Union. It was
the small New England states dragging their feet.
But also, the common man was not trusted to make an informed decision
about governmental matters. And he still isn't. While it is much easier
for the common man of today to inform himself, does he? Not in the sense
someone on this forum might inform himself of a favorite philosopher or
poet. Very few individuals put themselves forward as having done it. And
each of these few whether on TV, Radio, Newspapers, blogs, etc has a
following, people that trust them. Thus, if we got away with the formal
Electoral system we would still have the informal one, because the common
man isn't going to study everything on his own. I recently spent a good
deal of time studying one thing, how the electoral college was formed. The
writer of the Guardian article didn't do that. One can tell by the
wrongness of what he said. At the time the electoral college was formed,
in 1801 I believe, the college wasn't needed to protect slavery. Slavery
was still practiced in many of the Northern States at the time. The
Electoral College was one of the devices put forward to protect small New
England states who were reluctant to join a Union governed by large
populous states like Massachusetts.
And these anti-electoral-college complaints would seem more rational and
dispassionate if there weren't such a pervading odor of sour grapes in the
air while they are advanced. Clinton's campaign leaders were worried that
when Trump lost he wouldn't accept his loss but would fight on in some
unpleasant way. They feared he would refuse to accept the results of the
election. Not one of Clinton's campaign people feared that the electoral
college system would be a problem for them. It is the system of our
nation. They were used to it. They campaigned in the way they saw fit in
order to win the most electoral votes. And it hasn't been Clinton who has
complained about the electoral college vote going against her. It is
people further down the political chain, people who if they are true to
type don't do independent analysis of each issue but accept the analysis of
someone higher up, whether in the party, in the Newspapers, on TV, in
blogs, etc.
Now some people are going to disagree with me and say that they know
enough to have their vote trusted. They know that Hillary is going to
favor big government, cradle to the grave policies, the semi-socialism so
popular in European countries. In short, more power to a centralized
government that we trust to take care of us.
And people on the right will disagree with me and say that they know
enough to have their vote trusted. They know that Trump is going to favor
small government, lower taxes favoring business and entrepreneurs but also
favoring individuals who prefer to make up their own minds about things.
In short, more power to individual states and individuals personally.
But it is true that our constitution and Bill of Rights did not favor a
strong centralized government so those favoring Clinton have a genuine
complaint. The form of government Jefferson, the chief spokesman against a
strong centralized government at the time was against, was the monarchy,
but he was equally appalled by what was going on in France, and we have
other forms of centralized governments today.
Lawrence
On 12/14/2016 12:01 AM, Donal McEvoy (Redacted sender donalmcevoyuk for
DMARC) wrote:
It appears not all Americans are enamoured with the EC.
"Though it’s not gone unremarked upon, the fact that the loser of the
popular vote has won the election for the second time in 16 years is an
entirely home-grown disgrace. It would be nice if we spent at least as much
time talking about how the electoral college, a bizarre institution
originally designed to protect the power of slaveholders
<http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/electoral-college-slavery-constitution/>,
perverts democracy. But it is widely considered an immutable feature of our
political system."
Elsewhere I have read that the EC system favours larger states being
over-represented in the vote [the key to the EC system being that not all
votes by citizens will carry equal weight - that is why the loser of the
popular vote can win with less weight of votes were they measured as equal]
and so does not work to protect smaller states from overbearing large ones
or any of that fair-sounding justification.
The extent to which these points are true may be matter for debate, but
nothing has emerged that justifies the EC system so that we would say "If
we didn't have it, we'd probably introduce it, such are its advantages
compared to its disadvantages."
This appears so far from being the case, it surely indicates how the EC
system is now an anachronism.
My own understanding is that the EC system had some practical
justification before the age of mass communications but also was a product
of a view where voters elect 'wiser men' of the EC who then decide who
should be President - a view which arguably now belongs in the same corner
with the view that men should only have the vote because they will cast it
wisely for the household on behalf of their wife.
The article as a whole may be worth reading.
Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did | Doug
Henwood
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/13/putin-trump-election-hillary-clinton>
Putin didn't win this election for Trump. Hillary Clinton did | Doug He...
By Doug Henwood
Democrats would rather point to shady foreign operators than think about
why Hillary Clinton will not be the one...
<https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/13/putin-trump-election-hillary-clinton>
