electoral votes

[kowalskil]

The ongoing debates (August 2015) among potential Republican presidential candidates reminded me of a note I posted several years ago. Below is a link to an updated (and hopefully better) version of this note:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/presidentEN.htm

How can a retired teacher miss an opportunity for sharing what he thinks he understands better? Feel free to share the above link with all who might be interested, especially students. Comments will be appreciated, as usual.

Ludwik Kowalski, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus,
Montclair State University
=============================================

 

[dogtowner]

Thx doc, good summation.
Might want to fresh out the "why" behind the EC. I think most people don't grasp why this curious model was chosen.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The ongoing debates (August 2015) among potential Republican presidential candidates reminded me of a note I posted several years ago. Below is a link to an updated (and hopefully better) version of this note:

http://pages.csam.montclair.edu/~kowalski/presidentEN.htm

How can a retired teacher miss an opportunity for sharing what he thinks he understands better? Feel free to share the above link with all who might be interested, especially students. Comments will be appreciated, as usual.

Ludwik Kowalski, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus,
Montclair State University
=============================================

Why not split all states' electoral votes? So if a state has ten votes and the winner gets 60% of the popular vote there, he would get only 6 electoral votes. The other candidates would share the last 4, rounding off to tenths. Has any professor figured out how the past few elections would have worked out if we had eliminated the winner take all system?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Thx doc, good summation.
Might want to fresh out the "why" behind the EC. I think most people don't grasp why this curious model was chosen.

Why Their Constitution Was Written Behind Closed Doors

It was chosen so that any time the ruling class objects to the winner, it can bribe or force the electors to vote against their states' results.

 

[dogtowner]

Why not split all states' electoral votes? So if a state has ten votes and the winner gets 60% of the popular vote there, he would get only 6 electoral votes. The other candidates would share the last 4, rounding off to tenths. Has any professor figured out how the past few elections would have worked out if we had eliminated the winner take all system?

Some states have chosen to do that.
The rest understand it's not intended as popular vote.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Some states have chosen to do that.
The rest understand it's not intended as popular vote.

Your Dogma Ate Your Homework

No, it has to be nationwide. The states which do that now, as you irrelevantly mentioned, are cheating themselves out of electoral power unless every state has to do it. Why are you so shallow you can't understand that you don't have to do the right thing if it would put you at disadvantage if others don't have to do it. That's why we have laws in the first place.

This has nothing to do with national popular vote, but professors can't deal with anything not mentioned in their isolated huddle, so they have to pigeonhole anything from independent thinkiers in one of their narrow categories, where this doesn't belong. Any paper about who would have won the close elections through mandatory splitting of electoral votes would be greeted by the autocratic Department Heads with, "Who ordered that?"

 

[dogtowner]

Your Dogma Ate Your Homework

No, it has to be nationwide. The states which do that now, as you irrelevantly mentioned, are cheating themselves out of electoral power unless every state has to do it. Why are you so shallow you can't understand that you don't have to do the right thing if it would put you at disadvantage if others don't have to do it. That's why we have laws in the first place.

This has nothing to do with national popular vote, but professors can't deal with anything not mentioned in their isolated huddle, so they have to pigeonhole anything from independent thinkiers in one of their narrow categories, where this doesn't belong. Any paper about who would have won the close elections through mandatory splitting of electoral votes would be greeted by the autocratic Department Heads with, "Who ordered that?"

No paper because there us no point.
It was relaxant to note that some states use your model because how electors are chosen is not dictated by the feds as you indicated it was.
Some have worked it out that if a select group of high po population states all agreed to a popular vote scheme they could foil the system and get their liberal boys elected.
But, at least for now, they have enough integrity to honor the balanced system they came up with way back when in Philly.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

No paper because there us no point.
It was relaxing to note that some states use your model because how electors are chosen is not dictated by the feds as you indicated it was.
Some have worked it out that if a select group of high population states all agreed to a popular vote scheme they could foil the system
But, at least for now, they have enough integrity to honor the balanced system they came up with way back when in Philly.

We Won't Live Free Until the 1% Live in Fear

There are no sincere Liberals, only Preppies. That class, which is forced on us, has no right to exist. If we have to do it on our own, so must they. Or else.

This forum disdains originality. Logic and common sense are not allowed, only conformity. The Constitution is an anti-democratic manifesto written by lawyers for the 18th Century 1%. Only fascists and their buttboys push the lie that it is the supreme law of the land. In a man's country, it would be considered as a temporary start-up document to be superseded by all subsequent legislation by the elected Congress, or preferably, by national referenda. This generation must disable those who want to dictate to the majority. If the anointed brats of the rich and their pathetic class-climbing bootlickers have a future, the rest of us don't. So we have nothing to lose by pushing them into a landfill.

 

[dogtowner]

Logic and common sense huh.
Where do facts come into play pray tell ?