A criticism of the electoral college is that it gives too much prominence to the smaller states with its winner takes all electoral technology and warps the population's will such as the popular vote. The American founding fathers used the electoral college to protect against tyranny and usurpation by nobled tyrant, but also to try and balance the 'federal' and 'national' characters of the Washington system. (more)
ranomatic : There have been several occasion where an elector has not voted as pledged. The most recent was in 1976 when Mike Padden, a Republican elector from Washington, gave Ronald Reagan one electoral vote. He was pledged to Gerald Ford/Bob Dole, but since a Carter/Mondale election was assured, voted for Reagan instead as the candidate with the proper "pro-life" stance.
susan : What the U.S. Constitution says is "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . ." The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as "plenary" and "exclusive."
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation's first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation's first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote, and only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state's electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). Since then, as a result of changes in state laws, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
susan : The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided "battleground" states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state's electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
ranomatic : I should have read my own link. In 2000, Barbara Lett-Simmons, a DC elector pledged to Gore/Lieberman, did not vote for anyone in protest of DC's lack of congressional representation. There are some other problems since 1976, but they appear to be errors or some sort rather than breaking voting pledges. I think the process is interesting.
cam : The system was never intended as a purely national system. The electoral college was never intended to be sensitive to the popular vote. It is a mix of federal/national.
As to the winner takes all aspect at the state level, it is a trade off between legitimacy and a winner having a large majority of electors and hearing the federal voices of the states.
The purely national component of the US system is the House. Same as the Senate is the purely federal component. The executive is intended as a democratic mix of the two. In that it succeeds.
cam
I am a bit out of touch with Australian politics at the moment; a new state, new life and other aspects of the changes I have gone through in the last eight months have led to that. So I was surprised to see the furore over the Bill Henson pics. It appears it is the current moral outrage du jour One of the surprising aspects of republicanism (constitutional liberalism) and its combination with democracy and capitalism is how much power small factional interests have. I think this is the case here. (more)
One of the more contentious aspects of George W. Bush's term as President has been the use of Executive Orders to determine the constitutional action by the executive in response to legislation. Executive Orders do not have the force of law, they only have the force of procedure within the Administration, but as the executive executes the laws formalised by Congress in legislation, they can have serious effect in how the laws are enforced.
Because the President is using Executive Orders to outline the constitutional boundaries between executive and legislative there is concern that the Executive Orders are being used to legislate from the executive pulpit. It is probably more meaningful to see these actions under Jefferson's doctrine of higher obligation which effectively nullifies the doctrine of judicial review. (more)
cam : As a note: I have described the difference between English Constitutionalism and American Constitutionalism before.
In the context of this article the use of Whig doctrine is analogous to English Constitutionalism and Republican doctrine to American Constitutionalism. Whig doctrine is based in popular sovereignty, while American Republicanism is based in fundamental law (natural rights). It is the innovation beyond Whigism which Jefferson was a major part, however, his doctrine of higher obligation was in opposition to Madison's republicanism.
It is also interesting to note that historians which criticise Jefferson's presidency tend to do so with a Madisonian view of executive power, rather than Jefferson's view of executive legitimacy for action through popular sovereignty and higher obligation. Jefferson's presidency becomes more consistent under this doctrine.
Klaas Worldring has an article in Crikey on removing the major parties from the Senate. It carries the blurb of removing "the two party tyranny". I don't subscribe to crikey and that article is behind a paywall. I thought it may be an editorial headline, but Worldring has been active on Online Opinion and he has an article titled: Two party tyranny. (more)
One of the areas where conservatism suffers internal conflict is in collectivism. Because conservatism cannot describe human progress with breaking its own internal logic it turns to economic liberalism while trying to maintain conservative collectivism in culture, society, politics and nationalism. Consequently it breaks the liberty of collectivism in the economy but tries to promote or enforce it everywhere else. (more)
In Federalist 57 James Madison defends the House of Representatives as a just political structure that is designed to balance merit, common weal and electoral skepticism such that the right representatives can act as specialists, but not so far divorced from public confidence. Madison also discusses the political equality in republican government which promotes political equality, merit and the rule of law. (more)
in 1821 the United States was shocked to see an outburst of partisanship develop in Congress, partially due to growing political divisions, but also because there was no obvious Presidential successor to James Monroe. This is more curious as the Federalists ceased to exist as a viable opposition during the Madison presidency. Monroe was perturbed by the displays of partisanship and wrote to Madison on the issue.
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I am currently reading through Harry Ammon's tome on James Monroe who was the US President after James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. It is interesting to note how the revolution had its effect on the early Republicans where they came to see their form of government as promoting republicanism to the world. (more)
Hardt and Negri
on Liberalism;
The arguments of Madison, who thought representation the key to breaking apart any monarchy of power, now seem merely like mystifications; Montesquieu, who advocated radical division of constitutional powers, has been silenced by the unity of the system; and Jeffersonian free expression has been monopolized by corporate media. The political lexicon of modern liberalism is a cold bloodless cadaver.(more)
The Madisonian view of Republicanism was that the constitutional and representative structure of the Washington System ensured that the rights of the minority were protected from tyranny by the constitution, while the will of the majority would be accepted through the representative nature of the system.
Australian Republicanism is far more dynamic, finding it expression in the maximum republican, democratic and social organisation possible at any moment in time.
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