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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: D. Long who wrote (39540)	4/15/2004 5:43:47 AM
From: Michelino	Read Replies (2) of 793944

The worse case is that in the real world the EC result is highly unstable compared to the popular vote. It does not "magnify" the popular vote it as much as distorts it. There is no logical sense to the few cases when it has disagreed during the last two hundred years, just as there is no reason that merely crossing a state border should make one person's vote count more than another's. No one here has really attempted to deny that the Electoral College subverts the principle of one-man one-vote. (And for good reason as the institution was actually designed for that very purpose!) So I'll assume there is agreement and move on after posting a few closing points from a link: "1) Its winner-take-all nature likely discourages political participation in states where one party consistently dominates by a wide margin and unfairly punishes candidates that win a large percentage of votes, but still short of a majority; 2) It encourages the parties to cultivate support only in those states where they have a chance of winning that state's electoral votes, thereby limiting the geographical scope of political debate; 3) It gives small states undue influence in Presidential contests: Idaho gets 4 electoral votes and California gets 55 votes. However, a truly proportional system would give California 87 electoral votes (using the total votes cast in the 2000 election). The small states already get sufficient extra-representation in the Senate - they don't need this added bonus; 4) The system has proved itself a wellspring of political instability. It set the stage for the Supreme Court to involve itself in deciding the Florida recount case, calling into question the independence of that institution. It then gave the Republican Party control of both elected branches of the federal government - thereby running the risk of giving one political party too much power. None of which would have occurred - had we simply honored the will of the voters " gristforthemill.org PS Reason #2 is a big loss for all of us.

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