electoral Q.A
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College of Southern Nevada *
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Political Science
Date
Dec 6, 2023
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docx
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Uploaded by MegaFog10695
Shouldn't the Electoral College be scrapped then?
If you research the topic of the reasoning in favor of the Electoral College,
you will find that there were two broad concerns among some of the
Founding Fathers. One was the concern among those from the less populated
states - including James Madison - in the South that an election based only
on a popular vote would give those states less influence than their more
populated neighboring states in the North. This was also the rationale behind
slaves constituting 3/5 of a vote in the US Constitution. Another argument
favoring an Electoral College was the concern among some of the founders
that the electorate - although it was limited solely to wealthy land-owning
White males at the time - might occasionally elect a President who was not
"capable" or "unqualified" due to the electorate lacking the necessary
powers of discernment. This position was advocated by Alexander Hamilton
in Federalist # 68. In that case, the Electors, as represented by the founders
themselves or their designated assignees, would step in and correct the
errant decision of the less-than-qualified electorate.
These justifications for the Electoral College are racist, elitist, undemocratic,
and thoroughly outdated. Furthermore, the states with lower populations are
already provided for by each state, regardless of population, having only two
US Senators each. California has roughly 40,000,000 people and Wyoming
has roughly 500,000 and they both have two US Senators. No votes should
count more than others: one person, one vote. No other Western democracy
has this system and it's an embarrassment that the US still has it. The
Electoral College needs to be eliminated.
How long would the recount have taken? I don't
understand why the Supreme Court couldn't have just let
it proceed. Why did Al Gore concede? Was there anything
else that he could have done?
The best answer I can give you is "It's complicated". The recounts had gone
up until December 9 (although they had been stopped and restarted and
stopped and restarted several times before then) when the Supreme Court
stopped the recount with a 7 to 2 decision, on the basis that it violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
On December 12, the Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision, decided that to
conduct a recount that was constitutionally permissible, it would take more
time than Florida had, since US law required that the electors be picked six
days before the electoral vote, which was on December 18. That meant that
Florida had just one day to first create a system of counting ballots that was
fair to all Floridians, and then finish counting the ballots. To the majority, this
seemed impossible.
Al Gore conceded because Florida followed the Supreme Court's order and
stopped the recount. He had no control over it. However, he could have tried
to convince the Florida legislature to do something weird with its electors,
perhaps splitting them between him and Bush, but he had only one day to do
that and did not succeed.
Al Gore could have also tried to convince the electors to ignore the ballot
results and vote for him anyway, but the electors are partisans, and so it
would probably have been pointless.
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