Donald Trump has not been elected President of the United States

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Platapus

Just me, still not mastering the complexities of a computer keyboard.

The date of the electoral college changes as it is based on the day of the week.

The counting of the ballots is set at 6 January, but has been modified by law to move it a few days. I have not read whether it has been moved for 2017

Thank you! Why this complex system? Is it merely relic of 18th century or is there still some functional reasoning behind it?

[mapuc]

Have it ever happened that a states electoral have "changed" and voted for the other candidate.

Markus

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

Thank you! Why this complex system? Is it merely relic of 18th century or is there still some functional reasoning behind it?

its a relic of the 18th century. In an age when the horse was the fastest means of transport and letters the only means of communication, you needed a system that would have the time required to work, considering also how big the U.S.A. was, even in 1787.

The dates were also, as I recall, chosen so has not to interfere with farm work. Since almost all voters lived on farms, they had to be able to assemble at a convenient time. Early November was a time after most crops had been harvested and before winter set in.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

its a relic of the 18th century. In an age when the horse was the fastest means of transport and letters the only means of communication, you needed a system that would have the time required to work, considering also how big the U.S.A. was, even in 1787.

The dates were also, as I recall, chosen so has not to interfere with farm work. Since almost all voters lived on farms, they had to be able to assemble at a convenient time. Early November was a time after most crops had been harvested and before winter set in.

Interesting. Has there ever been real debate about changing this a bit old fashioned method into direct popular vote or somekind of hybrid?

Edited, read reason.

[b34856]

Originally Posted by mapuc

Have it ever happened that a states electoral have "changed" and voted for the other candidate.

Markus

179 times. They're called "faithless electors". Many states have laws against doing it, however. In 1836 they forced the election of the Vice President into the Senate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

Thank you! Why this complex system? Is it merely relic of 18th century or is there still some functional reasoning behind it?

The governmental system of the United States is a evolutionary system. Often things are done because they have always been done and no one wants to or can make any drastic changes. This is probably a good thing. So we make small changes and small changes on those changes and often the people making the changes are not aware of all the ramifications of their decisions.... so other changes are made to correct.... well you get the idea.

In a perfect world, the US would scrap the constitution as a whole and write a new one reflecting a much larger country and a much more complex environment than our founding dudes had to deal with.

Could you imagine 50 states trying to rewrite the constitution? Yikes!

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

Interesting. Has there ever been real debate about changing this a bit old fashioned method into direct popular vote or somekind of hybrid?

There have been over 700 proposed amendments to the constitution that deal with the electoral college. More than any other single issue. Why do we keep the electoral college?

1. It works and works well most of the time.

2. The electoral college, as presently operated, favours a two party system and since our major political offices are held by members of one of two political parties, there is no real incentive for changing it. The last thing the DNC and RNC want is another "X"NC muscling in on their territory.

To me there is a good solution and one that is solely up to the individual states. That would be to have a proportional electoral college. Get rid of the winner take all and apportion the same number of electoral votes across all of the candidates truly representing the people.

But as long as such decisions are made by Democrats and Republicans, don't expect any significant changes.


But to get back to your question -- tradition and a reluctance to change is why we does the things we does.

[Sailor Steve]

The Constitution does not specify that we vote for the President at all. Since the States wanted to retain as much independence as possible political representation ended up being divided between the People and the States. Representatives (Congressmen) were to be elected by the people of the districts they represented. Senators represented the States, and were elected by the State legislatures, not the People. That one changed in 1913 (the same year we got the Income Tax), and I'm not sure whether I think the change was a good one.

The main reason for the Electoral College is that the Founders didn't trust us to elect the President, and stipulated that the Electors be appointed by the States "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct". That States began allowing the people to vote for the Electors was by their own choice and popular demand. There is nothing in the Constitution that allows for us to vote for the President at all. Their idea was that, just as the Congressmen represented the people to the Federal Government and the Senators represented the States, the President represented the Nation to the rest of the world. They didn't see a need for the People to be involved at all, since our elected representatives would "appoint" the President to his office.

Originally Posted by Platapus

In a perfect world, the US would scrap the constitution as a whole and write a new one reflecting a much larger country and a much more complex environment than our founding dudes had to deal with.

Could you imagine 50 states trying to rewrite the constitution? Yikes!

Especially since once the Convention is called anything could happen. The first one was called merely to revise the older Articles of the Confederation. They, in their own words, "Revised it out of existence". With a new convention who knows what they might come up with?

To me there is a good solution and one that is solely up to the individual states. That would be to have a proportional electoral college. Get rid of the winner take all and apportion the same number of electoral votes across all of the candidates truly representing the people.

That would be the solution I would choose as well.

The one problem I see with eliminating the Electoral College altogether is what happened in Florida in 2000. If the General Election was even close we might end up with recounts in many states, and who knows how long that would take?

[Onkel Neal]

[Mr Quatro]

That's some map, Neal

The electorial college is usually just brought up when the election doesn't go their way ... oh wait a minute the democrats lost, uh?

[Sailor Steve]

That map is a very simplistic concept. The opposite argument is that land doesn't vote - people do.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

That map is a very simplistic concept. The opposite argument is that land doesn't vote - people do.

Actually it'd be more accurate to say that people don't vote for presidents, states do. People only vote to decide how their states portion of ballots will be cast.

[Oberon]

I wonder under a more PR based system how the third party candidates would fair. After our last election someone did a chart to show how it would have turned out if PR had been introduced beforehand, and UKIP would have done very well out of it (despite the fact that they campaigned against it back when the Lib Dems were proposing it) but under the current system they only got one seat.

Here's the Beeb article about it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32601281

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by August

Actually it'd be more accurate to say that people don't vote for presidents, states do. People only vote to decide how their states portion of ballots will be cast.

Sort of, but people still decide ... the EC people that is:https://www.yahoo.com/news/500-000-p...203109567.html

The Electoral College – which was first introduced in 1804 – is comprised of 538 electors. Each state’s number of electors is decided by its number of members in Congress, which is dependent on the state’s population. So, when American citizens cast their ballots, they aren’t directly voting for president – they’re voting for electors. This year, Trump took 279, to Clinton’s 228.