I feel that the supreme court has not benn "neutral" it has been like this for a while. who was it that said bush should be president when al gore had the popular? why is it organized by the electorial college anyway?

__________________

The Supreme Court didn't say that Bush should be president because they liked him. At that time there was arguably a left-leaning majority on the court. You do remember SD O'Connor worrying about "dictatorship" following her retirement don't you? She wasn't talking about Gore or Kerry!!! lol


Funny that the electoral college issue is coming up again. In 2004 it was though possible that Bush would win the popular vote and lose the electoral college. That would have meant that Bush would have lost. THe popular vote doesn't mean shit. It is a meaningless statistic. We are a representative republic, not a democracy, and certainly not a direct democracy (thank God.)

The electoral college doesn't have anything to do with the supreme court, and why you bring it up is beyond me.

The electoral college is the manner in which the constitution lays out that the president is to be elected. They Supreme Court can't say anything about it. It is not up for judicial review.

The electoral college prevents mobocracy and also protects the minority. Without the college states like Colorado would be irrelevant. All a candidate would have to do is campaign in the biggest states and totally ignore the smaller states. That would mean that California, Texas, and Florida would in effect be the de facto electors of the president. The founders were very saavy in this respect.

Following 2000 there was a lot of grumbling by people (like Hillary), dems mostly, that they were going to change the college.

What happened to that?

You can find out more about the electoral college (pro) by reading the Federalist Papers. (con) from wikipedia and look up anti-federalists.

The electoral college ISN'T going anywhere anytime soon. You need a constitutional amendment to abolish (requiring a two-thirds majority vote in congress), and then ratification by three-fourths of the states; that is something that just ain't gonna happen....

__________________
"A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred Allen

"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw

"Politics is the art of choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable."
John Galbraith

The electoral college is about balancing the power of states vs. the individuals in the country. It is a compromise that ensures that individual states do not become more powerful than others. somethig we have lost sight of over the years is that individual states were seen by our founding fathers as being closer to sovereign nations than to provinces.

Rember, we are NOT a democracy and the founding fathers never intended us to be one.

__________________
“In my lifetime, we've gone from Eisenhower to George W. Bush. We've gone from John F. Kennedy to Al Gore. If this is evolution, I believe that in twelve years, we'll be voting for plants.”
-Lewis Black

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
-Benjamin Franklin

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. "
-Thomas Jefferson

I have tried to refresh my brain cells about the function of the Electoral College, but after some research I am even more confused. I am hoping that some of the great minds here will be able to explain it me.

Now wait a minute! Before we change the Electoral College lets see how the next Presidential Election turns out. You know us Dems only want a change when we get out asses kicked. When we win it is "Stay the course."

__________________
God said to Abraham kill me a son,

Abe said God you must be putting me on

Dizzy that is cute, but I am intrested in wether or not the electoral college has become an antique.

Rob,

I am not sure what your confusion is about. Let me know and I will attempt to address it.

When the Federal Convention met and wrote the Constitution, they were in need of ratification by nine of the 13 state legislatures. This was not a slam dunk. States were afraid of a loss of power. States were being asked to give power to a national government to remedy the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.

By setting up the Congress with one body (House of Representatives) representing the people and the other (the Senate) representing states. The states were worried about being marginalized (small states population wise) by the larger states (New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania). By implementing the Electoral College, the states were still in some control of the process.

If the Electoral College were eliminated today, the least populous states would lose what ever small impact they now have in the presidential elections. Those states would never vote to ratify a Constitutional ammendment that would abolish the College.

I don't know if this helps. Let me know if you want more information.

Hodge, this is great and makes sense to me now. I have noticed during national campaings, some states don't even get a visit from the candiates.

Base upon what you have explained, without the electoral college, they would even less say in the elections. Thanks again

__________________
An informed voter scares the Goverment lackeys.

An American first and always a Conservative.

You hit the nail on the head regarding candidate visits. New Hampshire, with 4 electors and 700,000 voters (in 2004 at least) would never be visited based on their vote count and a candidate would focus on California, Texas, New York and Florida.

An interesting affect by having the college in place is this. California cast approx 10 million votes for Bush and Kerry combined in 2004. Kerry won CA with 5.5 versus 4.5 for Bush. Kerry got all 55 of California's electors. If Kerry had received 9 million to Bush's 1 million votes Kerry would still have gotten 55 electors. The college keeps a landslide in a couple of large states from taking the election. This gives a voice to small states like North Dakota with it small 300,000 votes (and 3 electors) an impact on the race.

Of course, it can be argued that the small states have a disproportional voice in the election as a result, but it does keep large population states from total domination.