Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site cmu-cs-cad.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!rochester!cmu-cs-pt!cmu-cs-cad!mjc From: mjc@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA (Monica Cellio) Newsgroups: net.legal Subject: Re: Electoral college Message-ID: <204@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> Date: Sun, 9-Dec-84 23:47:28 EST Article-I.D.: cmu-cs-c.204 Posted: Sun Dec 9 23:47:28 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 11-Dec-84 03:23:41 EST Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI Lines: 33 I was taught that the Electoral College was originally created because: -1- it would have taken too long to gather up the popular vote -2- the founding fathers didn't really trust the people to make an intelligent choice. Now that communications are better and people are theoretically more aware of the issues, what the candidates are saying, etc., the system seems to be pretty outdated/bogus. I don't buy the argument that the Electoral College protects minorities by making sure people in states with low populations have a say; either their 3 electoral votes don't really matter (and so the system doesn't really help them) or they are getting more than their fair share of the vote. My vote should count as much as yours regardless of where we each live; I shouldn't have a bigger say because I live in Utah or something. (Yes, I realize this is only a small difference with regard to the grand scheme of things, since part of the electoral share is roughly based on population.) Two hundred years ago people were broken up along geographical lines, so (say) all the people in Virginia were likely to feel the same way about a given issue while all the people in Vermont were likely to feel exactly the opposite way. Now, however, people are broken up along a number of lines; why protect geographical minorities if we aren't going to protect any other minorities? What makes them so special? We could just as easily break things up along, say, religous grounds; the Campus Crusade for Cthulhu will gladly take its 3 votes. Doesn't make much sense to do this, though. -Dragon -- UUCP: ...seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!lll-crg!dragon ARPA: monica.cellio@cmu-cs-cad or dragon@lll-crg