Quote:
Originally Posted by Jazzman
Different, but more important?
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I want to be clear in saying that I don't think that switching to a straight popular vote for president would lead to our nation's downfall. But I still think it isn't a good idea.
I don't think it is so much a matter of a vote in one area being
more important than a vote in another area. An opinion on Colorado River water policy is not more important simply because it is held by a Coloradan than a New Hampshirite.
The important effect of the electoral college is not that it gives more weight to individual votes in rural states but that it forces candidates to national office to at least pretend interest in the issues of rural states and balance those interests against the interest of urban states.
To continue using the Colorado River as an example, if all a presidential candidate cared about were raw votes when Los Angeles and Denver are fighting over water access and allocations then it is a slam dunk that you promise LA whatever they want to gain 3 million votes and lose 1 million in Colorado. The sensibleness of Colorado objections doesn't matter at all. Instead, ideally, the candidate is stuck trying to find a third way that will perhaps get him both LA and Colorado.
But this is a setting of priorities. Arguing that all votes should be 100% equal in value is a reasonable point of view and I don't disparage anybody who holds it and if it can be achieved through the democratic process I don't think it is really all that horrible. Just not, in my opinion, ideal.
Now, as I've said, the current system is tilted too heavily in giving geographic weight, but this is a byproduct of Congress having calcified at 435 members not something inherent in the electoral college. Reforming that would do a lot to balance things out.
That said, if Kerry had received a few thousand more votes in Ohio, how many of the currently anti-electoral crowd would be thanking their lucky stars that Kerry is president despite clear popular vote victory by Bush?