Actually, Bill, the election of 2000 is the fourth time in U.S. Presidential Election history that the victor received fewer popular votes than a competitor but carried on to victory.  John Quincy Adams in 1826, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888 all ‘lost’ the election by a straight tally of votes nationwide, and all three men went on to become President, due to the procedural mechanisms of the Electoral College.  It’s high time to get rid of that beast, at least as far as Presidential elections are concerned.

Comment by pjp — October 12, 2006 @ 11:41 am

It was in 1824 that John Quincy Adams was elected president.  He finished second in the Electoral College, behind Andrew Jackson, but no one had a majority of the electoral votes, so the election went into the House of Representatives, which chose Adams.

We only use the Electoral College to elect the president and vice president, and I think we should keep it.

Comment by Steve from Jackson, Mississippi — October 27, 2006 @ 6:16 pm

The election of 1824, and not 1826 of course, was indeed the race between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson by which JQA became President: a typo on my part; thank you, Steve, for correcting that.

My reasoning for eliminating the Electoral College is twofold, from the realms of theory and practice.  Theoretically, the formation of the College stems from the need to counteract the slowness of communication during the late eighteenth century, from the distrust of political parties inherent in the thinking of many of the founders, and from fears that opening up direct vote for the Presidency by the general populace would lead to a situation of voters in all states exclusively selecting ‘favored sons’ of their home state, resulting in a Presidency hampered in its ability to govern the entire nation effectively.  None of these conditions apply to the political and technological realities of the twenty-first century America.  Communication is now instantaneous, political parties are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and there are numerous instances of a candidate failing to carry their home state in an election.

From a practical standpoint, the Electoral College has led to a stranglehold on the electorate by a two-party rivalry, with alternative platforms and policies by third, or potentially fourth and fifth, parties marginalized into virtual irrelevancy, their candidates influencing elections as nothing more than spoilers.  Also, as stated above, a winning candidate as measured by strict tally of national popular vote can indeed lose the election, with their opponent being declared the victory owing to the winner-take-all nature of electoral votes in individual states.

Proponents maintain that the Electoral College contributes to the stability of our Federal system.  There’s no way to know that for sure unless the nation undergoes a period of time without the College, and it may indeed be that the Electoral College contributes nothing to the stability of our system, or that the advantages gained from its elimination outweigh any possible benefits it currently grants.  Again, it’s an anachronism, and it’s time for it to go.

Comment by pjp from milton ma — October 28, 2006 @ 1:12 pm