The unreasonableness in 2000 doesn't come from the Electoral College (In my opinion it came from inadequate election controls. Any time an election needs to go to the courts to decide it, we have a problem. But that's not the EC's fault.). As you note, previously in our history the winner of the popular vote has not won the election. This doesn't mean that the wrong person won the election. It doesn't mean Al Gore won the election in 2000. It means that the Electoral College has worked as it was supposed to, to prevent a tyranny of the majority result from crowding out regional needs. A grand and elegant compromise that was originally designed to keep Virginia's interests from overwhelming Rhode Island's just because Virginia had more people, it's still the glue that holds our federalist nation together.
I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that the majority of a country of 300 million people, a diverse nation with non-equally distributed population and a history of secessionist rhetoric, can't choose the president. You look at that
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The unreasonableness in 2000 doesn't come from the Electoral College (In my opinion it came from inadequate election controls. Any time an election needs to go to the courts to decide it, we have a problem. But that's not the EC's fault.). As you note, previously in our history the winner of the popular vote has not won the election. This doesn't mean that the wrong person won the election. It doesn't mean Al Gore won the election in 2000. It means that the Electoral College has worked as it was supposed to, to prevent a tyranny of the majority result from crowding out regional needs. A grand and elegant compromise that was originally designed to keep Virginia's interests from overwhelming Rhode Island's just because Virginia had more people, it's still the glue that holds our federalist nation together.
I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that the majority of a country of 300 million people, a diverse nation with non-equally distributed population and a history of secessionist rhetoric, can't choose the president. You look at that <a href"http://www.lesjones.com/www/images/posts/2000-electoral-map.gif">2000 map</a> and think Wow, we really could support a secessionist movement in this country, given the contiguity of voter blocks. There is a significant relationship between geography and party representation. The electoral college reduces that tension. It forces candidates to address the needs of states that would otherwise be ignored by a candidate running a national election. It prevents the country from being run purely in the interests of denser areas. These are all good things.
The tyranny of the majority, on the other hand, has been a serious threat to American democracy since the beginning. Mill warned against it. Washington warned against it. De Tocqueville warned against it. Just because a majority wants to do something doesn't make it just. Majoritarian decision-making is an American standard because it is more effective at protecting more people than any other system we know, but it needs counterbalances.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2011-05-09 21:22 (UTC)I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that the majority of a country of 300 million people, a diverse nation with non-equally distributed population and a history of secessionist rhetoric, can't choose the president. You look at that
I'm pretty sure it's a good thing that the majority of a country of 300 million people, a diverse nation with non-equally distributed population and a history of secessionist rhetoric, can't choose the president. You look at that <a href"http://www.lesjones.com/www/images/posts/2000-electoral-map.gif">2000 map</a> and think Wow, we really could support a secessionist movement in this country, given the contiguity of voter blocks. There is a significant relationship between geography and party representation. The electoral college reduces that tension. It forces candidates to address the needs of states that would otherwise be ignored by a candidate running a national election. It prevents the country from being run purely in the interests of denser areas. These are all good things.
The tyranny of the majority, on the other hand, has been a serious threat to American democracy since the beginning. Mill warned against it. Washington warned against it. De Tocqueville warned against it. Just because a majority wants to do something doesn't make it just. Majoritarian decision-making is an American standard because it is more effective at protecting more people than any other system we know, but it needs counterbalances.