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From: lmc@denelcor.UUCP (Lyle McElhaney)
Newsgroups: net.legal
Subject: Re: Electoral college
Message-ID: <622@denelcor.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Dec-84 19:55:56 EST
Article-I.D.: denelcor.622
Posted: Wed Dec 12 19:55:56 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Dec-84 05:40:57 EST
References: <204@cmu-cs-cad.ARPA> <4099@elsie.UUCP> <204@harvard.ARPA>
Organization: Denelcor, Aurora, Colorado
Lines: 20

> > The major argument that remains for the Electoral College is to prevent one
> > region of the country from forcing a popular regional candidate on the rest
> > of the nation.
> 
> So?  If Area X loves Candidate Y, and they have more people than there
> are in other areas (or at least add enough votes to those of the rest of
> the country to elect Candidate Y), why shouldn't that person be elected?
> 
Historically, the real reason is that there was no other way to get enough
votes for the original constitution in the Continental Congress (?) except
to compromise. Many small colonies felt that populous Virginia would rule
the nation, so they refused to sign until the Senate was set up to protect
low-population states. The electoral college serves the same function, since
the number of votes is the sum of the number of senators and representatives.
Without this compromise the constitution would not have had enough votes
to go into effect; thereafter inertia and political conservatism kept the
electoral college there.
-- 
Lyle McElhaney
{hao, stcvax, brl-bmd, nbires, csu-cs} !denelcor!lmc