Electoral College Vs. People's Vote?

Yes, the 538 Electors of the Electoral College actually cast the votes that technically elect the President and Vice-President. Each state and the District of Columbia have a certain number of electoral votes. Each state gives the presidential candidate receiving the most number of votes (i.e. the popular vote) ALL its electoral votes. The Electors then pledge those votes in the Electoral College.

Although Electors are not constitutionally beholden to follow the voters, there have been only very few times when they have not followed the decision of each state. There are, however, laws on the books in many states punishing so-called "faithless" Electors.

Cheers.

Popular vote, in a run-off election like France does if no candidate wins a majority of the popular vote after the first election. In a popular vote election, your vote would really matter and be equal in all 51 electoral regions. I'm sure the people of United States are now intelligent enough to directly elect their president after 200 plus years. Territories should be allowed to vote for the President as well, they have that right in France as well, which has a Semi-Presidental system. The idea of a popular vote was seriously entertained after an election Nixon won in 1968. He had .1% more popular vote but had 301 EVs over 191(Humphrey) and 46 (Wallace, a southern protest vote by the electors). Electoral College protects the rights of the small states and this is where the amendment seen its fall. It passed Congress but it died in the smaller states. So either all the States agree to some sort of electoral college reform or go for popular vote or people decide this matter in a Referendum.

Not quite.

There is nothing irrelevent about the popular vote (let's not say "people's vote." sounds commie). The popular vote is what determines which electors (and in some states that have apportionment, how many) will be seated in the College of Electors.

Electors are not your Congressmen. They are people chosen in the party convnetions that have agreed to vote for a particular candidate.

In the event of an electoral tie, a vote is taken in the House of Representatives.

If you read the 12th amendment you'll see how this works (link below). Note also, that a Vice-President, otehr than the one chosen by a Presidential Cnadidate as Running Mate can be elected. In addition that person could become President if the HoR were unable to elect a presidnent in the time required.

It's only half true: the people's vote is not ever used-- electoral vote is the only determinate of who is elected president. In cases where electoral votes are disputed, recounts occur when that's finished, the House and Senate vote to certify the electoral vote count. The chances of a tie in electoral votes is highly unlikely considering the way the electoral map is organized between "red" and "blue" states. Candidates usually win by a margin of several electoral votes.

In 2000, the Supreme Court decided to halt the recount of votes in Florida while Bush was ahead (his lead had shrunk to only a few hundred votes), thus giving him all the electoral votes for the state and making him president.

If elections were decided by popular vote only, Gore would have won in 2000 by a substantial margin. In the 2004 election, Bush won the popular vote.

Without the Electoral College, we would have only the following deciding who will be our President, and those of us not living in these areas would not have a voice:

The areas are: LA, San Francisco, NYC, Miami, Tampa, Dallas, Houston, and the other top 25 most populace cities in our Great Nation.

Al Gore's Biggest Mistakes in 2000:

The First and Biggest was taking Tennessee for Granted. He failed to let us know we would be #1 on his list.

His second biggest mistake was his failure to request every punch card ballot in every county which used them to be recounted by hand under one set of rules which would allow 'pregnant chads'

Had he done the later, the counting would have been completed sooner, and then there would have been no question as to who won Florida.

The blame for the challenge and the endless counting falls squarely on every news outlet FoxNews included who 'Projected' Al Gore as winner of Florida at 07:00 EST. when polls were still open in the Western edge of the Florida Panhandle as this small portion of Florida falls in the Central Time Zone and the polling stations were still open.

This is why we need to ban the news media from having Election Coverage the night of November 4, 2008. The media screwed it up in 2000 and 2004.

I, for one, can wait one month for each State to send their certified results to DC before the winner is reveled. It would be much fairer and there would be no questions.

Seems our News Media does not understand the concept of time zones. With the 'net, folks in Hawaii know who the winner is long before the polls close there.

I do not understand why everyone would not support this action.

I think he founders did a good thing with the electoral College. Without it, the smaller less densely populated states would not be a factor in national elections.

Do you want all your Presidents elected by New York and California?

I thought every recount performed by the media and other groups proved that Bush won Florida anyway. Where do you get the data to support he did not?

The difference is simple

1) The electoral college vote determines the winner of the

presidential election.

2) The popular vote is meaningless, resulting in the

disenfranchisement of voters.

Isn't our democracy wonderful?

Yes... it is true... and it was put there for GOOD reason.

The average person back in 1776 was uneducated (when the constitution was signed... you know, that old document that means nothing to our government anymore... the same document that protects us from them).

Anyways... it was put there as a backup plan, in case the people voted in a complete IDIOT!!! ... like someone who really couldn't fulfill the duties of a president.

Or other senarios I guess.

But politics are vicious, so if any delegate of the Electoral Collage would vote against the people today... I believe in my heart they would be shot/assassinated... (for good reason)

Don't worry about this though... if that happens, like if they get paid off... WE THE PEOPLE will take care of it... you can be sure of that.

Time to get rid of the Electoral College. Gore won by a million votes in 2000, even with florida and other republicans rigging the votes and turning away dark skinned voters.

The electoral college started because they didn't know who was in the US voting in the West.

Its true and for that reason Gore who had the popular vote lost to Bush who stole the electoral votes in Florida