Post by Majere on Jan 28, 2018 11:01:38 GMT -5
In a previous thread (that is now locked) someone had mentioned that the Electoral College was "complete bs" and that it could not be "defended one bit."
I don't want to start a topic about which political party is good, right, or better. But I did want to offer a simple defense of the Electoral College system.
For those of you not from America, the United States uses the Electoral College to elect the President. We do not use the popular vote. I want to explain what the Electoral College is, and why we use it.
1.) The United States is a Constitutional Republic. It is not a democracy, and certainly not a direct democracy. I think this is something a lot of people forget or never knew, and is a major reason why they get upset when a candidate wins the popular vote but doesn't become president.
2.) Which leads to the question/thought: Why isn't the U.S. a democracy? Isn't democracy the fairest way to decide things?
The answer is 'no.' Ask yourself, what is a democracy? Literally, what is it? A democracy is a form of government ruled by the majority, not the minority. In a true democracy, the minority cannot win. Ever. That is the basic fact. In a country where the majority has power, the minority has none.
This is why the U.S. is not and was never designed to be a democracy. We believe in democratic values, such as common people deciding who gets put into positions of power. But we also believe that the minority should have power in the political arena too. In a democracy, the minority have no power at all. Remember, in a democracy the majority rules. Not the minority. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority over the minority. It's pure mathematics. The majority wins every time.
3.) OK, so how does the Electoral College giver power to minorities?
Let's look at a simple example of how democracy works, and then a simple example of how the elector college works.
Scenario 1: We need to decide as a group who will be promoted as the new president of the company. We are going to decide who wins based on who gets the most votes (the democratic process.) 10 employees will vote.
Donald: votes for himself
Hillary: votes for herself
Ted: votes for himself
Bernie: votes for himself
Marco: votes for himself
Chris: votes for himself
John: voted for himself
Jeb: votes for himself
Carlie: votes for herself
Ben: votes for Donald
Under the democratic process, Donald becomes the new president, because he got the most votes. Is that fair? I don't know, what do you think? Donald got the most votes, on one hand. But on the other, he didn't get the majority of the votes. So is it fair? Ultimately, when you run democracy to its ultimate logical end, you always run the risk of this kind of result. You run the result of having someone win even though most people preferred someone else. You can't escape a result like this. You may not always get this result, but this result is always possible. That's the weakness of a pure democracy. Majority rules every time, regardless of the minority.
Scenario 2: As we mentioned earlier, we need to decide on who the new president of our company will be. The democratic process left 8 of the 10 candidates fuming mad. Let's try something new. Let's try that electoral college thing, and vote based on departments. Here are the departments:
Sales team: 20 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the sales team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the sales team has 20 members, they get two electoral votes.
I.T. Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the I.T. team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the sales team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
R & D Team: 5 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the R & D team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the R & D team has 5 members, they get one electoral vote.
Administration Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the Administration team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the Administration team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
Accounting Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the Accounting team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the Accounting team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
Election rules: To be the new president, you have to win the most electoral votes. Hillary wins the 2 electoral votes from the sales team, because she promised to cut the budget of all the other teams and give that money to sales.
Donald wins 1 electoral vote each from I.T., R & D, Admin, and Accounting, because Hillary threatened to cut all their budgets and give it to Sales.
Donald is the new president because he won 4 electoral votes from 4 departments, while Hillary only won 2 electoral votes from the Sales Team.
Why is that fair? Hillary had 20 total votes, while Donald only had 11 total votes. It's fair because in a democracy, Sales would determine who would win every election. No other department would ever matter. Ever. The Sales team would always vote for whoever promised to do the most for the Sales team. I.T., R & D, Admin, and Accounting would all suffer and no one would ever care about them again. Every candidate would ignore every department except for Sales, because Sales has more people and whoever Sales votes for will win. And eventually the company would fail completely, because Sales doesn't always know what's best for the company.
If I.T. doesn't maintain the system and keep it secure Sales can't do their job, and other companies might even hack our company and steal our information.
If R & D isn't able to innovate our product and keep it on the cutting edge, sales will suffer because our competitors from better run companies will outperform us in the marketplace.
If the Admin team isn't there to adjust policy based on current market conditions, or Accounting isn't there to balance the books, again, the company will fail.
The electoral system was the fairest way to pick the president because only in the Electoral College does a presidential candidate have to appeal all the different departments in a company, not just the Sales department.
So too is this why the Electoral College is important to the United States. The Electoral College forces a candidate to win a majority of the states, and not just California and New York. Because California has no clue what the people in Idaho, Georgia, Louisiana, or Kentucky need. Nor do the people of Alabama know what the people in California, New York, Philadelphia, Montana, or New Mexico need. Every state has a right to have their voices heard, and only by the Electoral College is this possible.
In short, this is why the Electoral College works:
Because the overwhelming majority of the country clearly went one direction, even if they didn't have the most people.
I don't want to start a topic about which political party is good, right, or better. But I did want to offer a simple defense of the Electoral College system.
For those of you not from America, the United States uses the Electoral College to elect the President. We do not use the popular vote. I want to explain what the Electoral College is, and why we use it.
1.) The United States is a Constitutional Republic. It is not a democracy, and certainly not a direct democracy. I think this is something a lot of people forget or never knew, and is a major reason why they get upset when a candidate wins the popular vote but doesn't become president.
2.) Which leads to the question/thought: Why isn't the U.S. a democracy? Isn't democracy the fairest way to decide things?
The answer is 'no.' Ask yourself, what is a democracy? Literally, what is it? A democracy is a form of government ruled by the majority, not the minority. In a true democracy, the minority cannot win. Ever. That is the basic fact. In a country where the majority has power, the minority has none.
This is why the U.S. is not and was never designed to be a democracy. We believe in democratic values, such as common people deciding who gets put into positions of power. But we also believe that the minority should have power in the political arena too. In a democracy, the minority have no power at all. Remember, in a democracy the majority rules. Not the minority. Democracy is the tyranny of the majority over the minority. It's pure mathematics. The majority wins every time.
3.) OK, so how does the Electoral College giver power to minorities?
Let's look at a simple example of how democracy works, and then a simple example of how the elector college works.
Scenario 1: We need to decide as a group who will be promoted as the new president of the company. We are going to decide who wins based on who gets the most votes (the democratic process.) 10 employees will vote.
Donald: votes for himself
Hillary: votes for herself
Ted: votes for himself
Bernie: votes for himself
Marco: votes for himself
Chris: votes for himself
John: voted for himself
Jeb: votes for himself
Carlie: votes for herself
Ben: votes for Donald
Under the democratic process, Donald becomes the new president, because he got the most votes. Is that fair? I don't know, what do you think? Donald got the most votes, on one hand. But on the other, he didn't get the majority of the votes. So is it fair? Ultimately, when you run democracy to its ultimate logical end, you always run the risk of this kind of result. You run the result of having someone win even though most people preferred someone else. You can't escape a result like this. You may not always get this result, but this result is always possible. That's the weakness of a pure democracy. Majority rules every time, regardless of the minority.
Scenario 2: As we mentioned earlier, we need to decide on who the new president of our company will be. The democratic process left 8 of the 10 candidates fuming mad. Let's try something new. Let's try that electoral college thing, and vote based on departments. Here are the departments:
Sales team: 20 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the sales team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the sales team has 20 members, they get two electoral votes.
I.T. Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the I.T. team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the sales team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
R & D Team: 5 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the R & D team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the R & D team has 5 members, they get one electoral vote.
Administration Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the Administration team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the Administration team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
Accounting Team: 2 staff members - an internal department vote will decide who the Accounting team supports. Every department with a staff between 1-10 members gets an electoral vote. Between 10-20 gets two electoral votes. And so on. Because the Accounting team has 2 members, they get one electoral vote.
Election rules: To be the new president, you have to win the most electoral votes. Hillary wins the 2 electoral votes from the sales team, because she promised to cut the budget of all the other teams and give that money to sales.
Donald wins 1 electoral vote each from I.T., R & D, Admin, and Accounting, because Hillary threatened to cut all their budgets and give it to Sales.
Donald is the new president because he won 4 electoral votes from 4 departments, while Hillary only won 2 electoral votes from the Sales Team.
Why is that fair? Hillary had 20 total votes, while Donald only had 11 total votes. It's fair because in a democracy, Sales would determine who would win every election. No other department would ever matter. Ever. The Sales team would always vote for whoever promised to do the most for the Sales team. I.T., R & D, Admin, and Accounting would all suffer and no one would ever care about them again. Every candidate would ignore every department except for Sales, because Sales has more people and whoever Sales votes for will win. And eventually the company would fail completely, because Sales doesn't always know what's best for the company.
If I.T. doesn't maintain the system and keep it secure Sales can't do their job, and other companies might even hack our company and steal our information.
If R & D isn't able to innovate our product and keep it on the cutting edge, sales will suffer because our competitors from better run companies will outperform us in the marketplace.
If the Admin team isn't there to adjust policy based on current market conditions, or Accounting isn't there to balance the books, again, the company will fail.
The electoral system was the fairest way to pick the president because only in the Electoral College does a presidential candidate have to appeal all the different departments in a company, not just the Sales department.
So too is this why the Electoral College is important to the United States. The Electoral College forces a candidate to win a majority of the states, and not just California and New York. Because California has no clue what the people in Idaho, Georgia, Louisiana, or Kentucky need. Nor do the people of Alabama know what the people in California, New York, Philadelphia, Montana, or New Mexico need. Every state has a right to have their voices heard, and only by the Electoral College is this possible.
In short, this is why the Electoral College works:
Because the overwhelming majority of the country clearly went one direction, even if they didn't have the most people.