[OFB Cafe] Electoral College (was Re: Bio Fuels)

[Timothy Butler]

>> 	The popular vote has always
>> been meaningless. We are a federal republic, made of individual  
>> states
>> that send electors to chose a president. Of course, since most people
>> cannot understand the premises behind this form of government, it
>> isn't surprising the popular vote attracts so much attention.
>
> Even if one _can_ understand the premises, that doesn't invalidate the
> attention paid to the popular vote.  It's pretty reasonable to say  
> that if
> most of the population doesn't support the person who gets elected,  
> it's not
> a fair vote.  However, I don't think half a million people in the  
> entire
> voting population of the US (200 million?) is enough to call the  
> election
> unfair on those grounds alone (and I note, Chris didn't say that  
> anyway).
> Certainly more people simply failed to exercise their franchise than  
> the
> difference in the popular vote.

	See the problem is that the election is not a national election, but  
50 state elections. It's part of the whole idea of representative  
democracy, and one that reminds everybody that the U.S. is really 50  
states, not fifty provinces. It's sort of like the U.N.; why don't we  
do a popular vote to elect the secretary general?

	-Tim

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