Talk:Electoral college

Suggestion for rewrite

This sentence is not clearly understood: One side effect is that it is possible for a candidate to win more popular votes but have fewer electors elected to the Electoral College, meaning that the person with fewer popular votes gets elected to the presidency.

Advantages

There doesn't seem to be anything in the article about the advantages of an electoral college. Mainly giving a balance of power to the smaller states. If the US went to a popular vote system States like California and New York Would control every presidential election and so candidates could run on a platform of "I'll send all the money to CA an NY, and stop sending money to all other states" and win the election. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.178.100.214 (talk) 21:23, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Please someone

put in the names and biographies of current electoral college members, I cannot find this information anywhere and it seems like a secret society. Not very transparent for a democracy!

--- For a list of the 2000 electoral college reps, check this site. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/2000/members.html it doesnt say how many electoral votes in all 66.65.111.35 (talk) 00:10, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

put a link on the main page of the article to separate the various 'electoral colleges' in the world/history. --Kensai 19:28, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC) See also: Talk:U.S. Electoral College I understand why someone might want to put Nader's vote totals on the page. I myself am a Libertarian, and would like to place my parties vote totals on the page as well. But these totals are not useful for the discussion, because: a) No one (I've heard from) disputes that Nader's supporters (Left) would overwhelmingly vote for Gore (Center-Left) if Nader wasn't in the game. This would be useful if the problem was that Gore didn't win the majority of votes, and Nader swung the election in this matter. But that isn't the problem at all, Gore won the majority of votes with or without Nader. b) Nader didn't receive *ANY* electoral college votes. No single elector defections (ala the Libertarian Party in 1972), or enough electors to go to a second round (as in some elections in the far past - can't remember right now, not enough coffee). So inserting him in the entry is pointless on this level as well. Now, I think it would be useful if someone could come up with some figures that would show how many states or counties Nader swung for Bush by drawing votes away from Gore. Absent this info, I think the reference should be deleted.

---

actually, i think Nader won Wyoming in 2000. nope, must have been some other election.

The aggregate of his votes don't matter. What matters is that he swung some key states. I think Gore lost 1000+ votes in Florida(these were voters who said they would have voted Democrat if they didn't vote Nadar). Florida isn't alone, there were a couple of northeastern states that would have flipped to Gore as well. I don't see the importance of Nadar though, as the Gore-Nadar problem has nothing to do with the Electoral College, IMHO. What really matters here is if you believe in pluralism or majoritarianism(sp?).

"Supporters feel the intent of the college is to favour a candidate who may have minority support overall but whose appeal is more broadly distributed across the nation, rather than one who is favoured by a minority of regions or only by voters in large cities. "

Well, if this is the case, then supporters of the college are completely ignorant. Ross Perot received 19% of the popular vote, but ZERO electoral college votes. So, that theory is shot down. In fact, supporters often make the opposite case -- the electoral college offers a way of keeping out fringe and extremist minorities.

This is incorrect in its presentation. Both Al Gore and George Bush failed to win a majority of votes in the election. While supporters (of which I am one), do feel that the purpose is to possibly favor a minority candidate with broadly distributed appeal, the implication is unfavorable - though technically correct (both Gore & Bush were in the minority).

Can someone clarify this - I think I'm too partisan about to be fair myself!

Urban

The article implies in one particular sentence that the primary purpose of the college is to stop the influence of urban centres over rural. While this may be the effect, what evidence is there that this is the primary purpose of the college, as intended by the authors of the constitution?

Personally, I wouldn't say that the founding father's intended the U.S. Electoral College to balance the power of urban centers per se. Instead, I would say it was to put smaller states on better footing so they could have a voice versus the larger states. This is exactly what the United States Senate was intended to do, and the two extra votes per state in the Electoral College was an extension of that. See Connecticut Compromise. Pmadrid 01:47, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

No it's to encourage a careful selection - look at the way it was originally structured so as to produce a list of candidates which the House of Representatives would then select from. To be honest they didn't care much beyond getting Washington as the first President (hence the way all rules get flouted with the way the Vice-President was selected) and intended Congress to be the most important branch. Timrollpickering 09:08, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

---

Please excuse me if I'm not doing this right, but this is the first time I've done anything with the Wikipedia. A useful addition to this page would be other countries that have Electoral College systems, for example I cam to this link from the Pakistan Electoral College link, so clearly there's a least one other country right there. It would be an interesting measure of the popularity of this concept.

Nations with Electoral College systems outside the United States include Brazil, Estonia, Finland, France, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Madagascar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Most of this list is wrong. Brazil, Finland, France and South Korea should all be deleted. If the specification was electoral colleges for choosing a president a number of the others have to go as well. Adding semidemocracies like Kazakhstan and Hong Kong feels more like POV defence of electoral colleges than anything else. Moreover, we really need to sort out what belongs in this article and what belongs in the US electoral college aticle. Alan

Criticisms

Am I the only one that thinks that this article lacks a section with criticisms of the system. I'm pretty sure we could find some criticisms of the system, as this system isn't directly democratic. Are there any plans in countries using this system to change into the "normal" system of direct democracy? --HJV 22:21, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms would be an EXCELLENT addition as anyone can level some with the electoral college. I would suggest more discussions begin on why the electoral college was important and why it could be considered now inadiquate or useless. Te original reason was to reduce the problems two-hundred years ago with counting votes.. now with electronic and better logicistics, these problems are solved at least in America; making the electoral college considereably less useful.--OMG LAZERS 04:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Many still believe in the Electoral College as an important feature of the Republic. It gives smaller (by population) states a level of political clout that they wouldn't otherwise enjoy. The original reasonings behind the creation of the Electoral College - that it should ensure smaller states have a significant voice in choosing the president - and that a pure popular vote would reduce the country to a state of mob rule (i.e., 'tryanny of the majority') are still valid. Of course, a lot of people want to transform the US from a Republic to a Centralized European-style social democracy, and if that is what you want, then you would support the elimination of the Electoral College (the passage 17th amendment was also a huge step along this path).--Jim

What the hell does that last post mean??? It seemed to answer everything BUT the question. I support the addition of a criticisms section. It would be appropriate, imo. 24.98.225.16 (talk) 20:32, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Electoral college in Germany

The president elected by the electoral college in Germany has not say, he is a political puppet. the Chancellor who runs Germany is elected by popular direct vote....Felt that bit of info was missing.

Are you sure? I believe the president is indeed given duties and powers (look in the article for presidency of germany, it lists them.) One of these powers I think is to choose a chancellor (not the direct popular vote.) I believe that is how hitler became chancellor, hindenburg did it because he was so popular.

Both of you are wrong. The president in Germany DOES have some power, his signature is necessary for bills to become law, and he has, in the past, occasionally refused to sign a bill into law if he had grave constitutional objections. Second, the chancellor is not elected directly, he is elected by the lower house of parliament and appointed by the president. The second comment above is mind-boggling, however, in believing that powers held by a president under the Weimar constitution were still relevant today... He's also wrong on Hindenburg's motivations, but that's not the issue either... --213.209.110.45 (talk) 15:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Electoral Vs. Popular Vote

In this section, it states that winning the presidency without winning the popular vote only happened three times. It actually happened more than that. Here are the 20th century presidents that won without the majority of votes: 1912 - Woodrow Wilson with 41.8% and in 1916 with 49.3% 1948 - Harry Truman with 49.5% 1960 - John F. Kennedy with 49.7% 1968 - Richard Nixon with 43.4% 1992 - Bill Clinton with 43% and in 1996 with 49% I am siting "the importance of the electoral college by Dr. George Grant." - Dace48

they may have not had the majority, but they did win the plurality, which in most elections in the US is considered a win.65.205.20.42 (talk) 17:52, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

electoral college

what is it called when a person casts a vote for someone other than they pledged to elect?

People who do that are called faithless electors. 24 states have laws to punish these bad boys, but check the article for more. --Kevin ^(TALK) 19:20, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

Possible merge?

There isn't much information at [US Presidential Electors], and I think the two articles could benefit from a merge.64.50.95.2 06:34, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

What's the deal with the US?

• This article is about Electoral Colleges in general. For the U.S system of electing the President, see United States Electoral College. (intro notice)
• States with electoral college systems outside the United States include (...)

Sentences like this make the reader (me) feel that everything orbits around the United States. Really does it?

Just a thought.

--200.126.147.111 01:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

The U.S. Presidential Election is objectively, without a doubt, the most significant use of an electoral college system worldwide, both in terms of number of people affected and depth of impact. 165.82.172.7 (talk) 23:12, 20 October 2008 (UTC)

Cristina_Elisabeth_Fernandez_de_Kirchner

States with electoral college systems outside the United States include Burundi, Estonia, India, France (for the Senate), Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Trinidad and Tobago.^{[citation needed]}

Is this inclusive|exclusive, comprehensive, completely verified??

This should be referenced further-up, easy-to-locate. Further, it, as well, deserves an article, comparing how each entity got there|here, as well as how various nations have gotten past this anachronism:

According to partial official results, she has met the two requirements needed to win the election outright; that is, a 40%-plus plurality of the votes and a 10% advantage over her nearest rival. That would be the widest margin a candidate has obtained since democracy returned to Argentina in 1983. If final results confirm the current trend, she will be Argentina's second female president, but the first to be elected.

There should be an Argentina-succession-chronology.

There should be a list comparing all nations' comparable systems, regarding the equivalent position, despite the fact that various nations do name this w/ a variety of words|phrases.

Thank You,

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 12:40, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Presidential Elections

The current method for electing the President is by popular vote. The former method (established by the Constitution in 1853 and re-established by the amendment of 1957) was of election by means of an Electoral College. The amendment of 1949 established popular election for the first time, and the last amendment of 1994 re-established it.

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 13:00, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

"1949" & "1994" are the same digits; is there such an entity as a numerical-anagram??

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 23:15, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

what tha freak! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.129.65.4 (talk) 15:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Electing George Washington

I would like to see references for the material in this article. I'm particularly interested in seeing a reference for the statement that "the United States Electoral College was created for the express purpose of insuring that George Washington would be elected the first president." For that to be true, the Framers would have had to have known that the electors would vote for Washington. But how could they have known that, when they couldn’t have known who the state legislators would appoint as electors? Even if getting Washington elected was one reason for creating the Electoral College, it definitely wasn't the only reason, so the phrase "the express purpose" could be misleading. One of the reasons the Electoral College was created was to prevent "excessive democracy" by preventing the common people from electing the President and Vice President directly. As Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 68, "A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations."
Thanks.Sharon Leigh Wilson (talk) 07:25, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the dubious statement about George Washington and added the unreferenced template to the article. As I mentioned in my edit summary, if the statement was in fact true and is re-added, it needs to have a reference cited. If you find articles like this in the future that are lacking proper citations, you can add the {{fact}} template to questionable unsourced statements and the {{unreferenced}} template to the article itself if it is entirely devoid of references.
– 67.43.92.191 (talk) 18:53, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Don't the territories get to vote for electors?

I thought that the territories and the commonwealth of Puerto Rico didn't have any representation in the US House nor in the US Senate, but don't they get to vote for President?

The main article says that there are 538 electoral votes. This would be 100 for US Senators, 435 for the House of Representatives, and 3 for the District of Columbia.

I knew that the District of Columbia didn't have any votes in the US Senate nor in the US House. Is it true the citizens residing in Washington D. C. can vote for electors and thus vote for President but none of the territories can neither vote for US President, US Senate, nor even for the President of the USA?

166.70.40.128 (talk) 10:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

DC, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam have non-voting delegate in the US House of representatives. They have no representation in the Senate. DC has 3 electoral votes as provided in the 22nd Amendment. The territories have no voice in electing the President. They do maintain the right to petition for statehood, which would grant them electoral votes. Schoop (talk) 14:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Confederacy

"The short-lived Confederate States of America provided for election of its president in virtually the same manner as set forth in the U.S. Constitution."

The Confederation did not have a president.

Please email me at think.perfect@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cfabara (talk • contribs) 23:06, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

The Confederate States of America (Confederacy, not confederation) did indeed have a president. It was Jefferson Davis. Schoop (talk) 14:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

No citation needed

Is it not obvious that having the final vote really goes to that one group of people, and they can just decide as they wish wether or not to let the real public's opinion influence them? Is it not obvious that many people feel that distorts democracy? Just use logic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.231.65.233 (talk) 19:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is there an electoral college?????

I am doing a response on the electoral college and I can't find anything about whether or not the actual popular vote means anything? Is it just to make the citzens feel good and like they are participating in the elections? Why is there an electoral college? What is its purpose if the actual popular vote means nothing to the actual election? Why did the framers choose to create the electoral college?--76.25.72.225 (talk) 00:03, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you read the Electoral College (United States) article? Your questions seem to be about the US system, and that article coveres it in depth, including issues regarding the popular voote. If you would read that page carefully, I think you'll find most of the questions you've raised are covered there. Also, while talk page are primarily for discussing the article itself, and not the actual topic, your questions do show where the article has left you with more questions than answers. If the US article doesn't answer then, then we need to improve that article. This one, however, is just on electoral colleges in general, and their history, and not the US one specifically. Hope that helps! - BillCJ (talk) 00:14, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Old vandalism

I read through the article in preparing to respond to the above post for information on the US system, but could find none. I noticed that there seemed to be a missing paragraph after the one on Christianinty. The next paragraph began with "Similar systems are used or have been used in other presidential elections around the world." Obviously, the system of the Catholic church is not a presidential system, so I went searching for a missing paragraph. I found it in a spate of vandalistic edits from November 2006. I found some more in December 2007, so we might want to keep an eye out for items we remeber that might have disappeared. So much for Jimbo's thory of vandalism being reverted within 15 minutes. Or was it seconds? Don't make much difference compared to 17 months! There's got to be a better way to protect an encylopedia from such nonsense. Need I mention the vandal was an IP user? - BillCJ (talk) 02:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

As if to reinforce my point unchecked vandalsim and its IP perpetrators, an IP inserted comments within mine in Oct, 2008. Judging from the collection of vandalism warnings on the IP's talk page, I'm not assuming these were just misplaced comments, and thus not including them here. I might not have ever noticed them ,except that they gave an opinion I did and do not hold. "Welcome to WP, the free encyclopedia anyone can vandalize, and have it recorded for ever!" - BilCat (talk) 20:35, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Contradictions?

This article says "Nations with electoral college systems outside the United States include Burundi, Estonia, India, France (for the Senate), Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Nepal, Pakistan, and Trinidad and Tobago." and cites for many of the countries. However that contradicts http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_voting_systems_by_nation what this article says? Any known reasons for this?

MrEaton (talk) 15:07, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

[1] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.170.202.20 (talk) 13:24, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

RECOMMENDATION FOR LOCKING UNTIL NOVEMBER 5

This article has already been vandalized once this morning. I suggest that it be locked until after official popular results are verified on November 5th and then again until the EC vote on December 4th. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.119.56.30 (talk) 14:00, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

2 states not winner take all

Each state is allowed to decide how its electors will be chosen. All states except for Maine and Nebraska chose a winner take all system. If you get 50% +1 vote you get all the states electoral college votes. In the case of Maine and Nebraska, they use a tiered system where a single elector is chosen within each Congressional district and two electors are chosen by statewide popular vote. —Preceding unsigned comment added by R Stillwater (talk • contribs) 00:39, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Hypothetical question: If every state followed the approach of Maine and Nebraska, how would presidential campaigns adapt? Would there be more chaos or more clarity? Parsing speeches and campaign ads would be an obvious challenge. Has anyone seen an analysis of this scenario? --jwalling (talk) 22:02, 7 November 2008 (UTC) -- Addendum: I can see how dividing the votes in individual states would benefit one party over another, but would one party benefit if every state's votes were divided? If yes, which party and why? --jwalling (talk) 22:25, 7 November 2008 (UTC) -- FYI: SwingStateProject: Crowdsourcing Project: Presidential Results by CD This could be the start of something useful. --jwalling (talk) 23:47, 7 November 2008 (UTC)