The State of the Union: Lies about a Dishonest War

RogerM wrote:

...."based to a large degree on population" So it's only somewhat
undemocratic?

What? Do you even know how the Electoral College is formulated? Each state
has a number of electors equal to its number of Representatives and
Senators. Since a state's number of Representatives is based on population,
but its number of Senators is not, I used the phrase "based to a large
degree on population". Undemocratic has nothing to do with it.


....Because it doesn't provide for 'one man - one vote'. 'To a degree'
isn't sufficiently democratic. What about the degree to which it goes
against the will of the majority?

[sigh....] see above response.

...In any case, as I understand it, the electoral votes aren't constrained
by law to reflect the popular vote of the particular state. It's more
of a 'gentlemen's agreement' that the votes will go to the candidate who
garners the highest popular vote.

Why not have a system where every voter is equal?

The framers of our Constitution looked out over the landscape and saw a
country where a large percentage of the population was semi-literate, huge
numbers of citizens couldn't even sign their own name, and most were rural
dwellers at the end of a four to six month communication line. In short, a
place where the preponderance of the population might easily be subject to
misinformation and manipulation. This was one of the reasons that our
government was formed as a Republic, and not a Democracy, and similarly
justification for the Electoral College. In a Republic, the population
elects regional representatives of [hopefully] knowledgeable, sober, mature
judgment, and said representatives exercise their best judgment in making
decisions of state. There is always an insulating layer of supposedly good
judgment between the population as a whole, and the crucial and oft-times
irrevocable decisions of state. In today's world, literacy , of course, is
drastically improved, and speed of communication is no longer a factor. But
we still have that pesky little problem of misinformation and manipulation.
Fully one-quarter to one-third (at a minimum) of the voting population is
easily vulnerable, and huge portions of our population live in different
worlds from one another (urban v rural, etc.). The aforementioned
"...insulating layer of supposedly good judgment..." together with the
equalizing and stabilizing effect of the Electoral system remain, imho, a
good thing.