B.S. from The Electoral College

The Founding Fathers created a government out of scratch beautifully, checks & balances still boggle my mind, but they did make some mistakes…honest.

Right now I’m going to talk quickly about the first blunder, The Electoral College.

What do these elections have in common?

Answer: More people voted for the candidate who came in 2nd place.

So what do we use instead of the current Electoral College? Well, I think Australia has a good system: Compulsory Voting + Preferential Voting.

Compulsory Voting: In Australia, every citizen must vote in state AND federal elections.
Preferential Voting: Also down under, people vote for a candidate in order of preference.

Compulsory voting makes sure that the people choose the President, while Preferential voting pretty much takes care of the two-party system. Elegant, no?

I’m not in the mood to bash the two-party system right now, if the Founding Fathers were here, I’m sure they would help me out. I just wish the people would realize that this country wasn’t intended to be ruled by two-parties, and I also wish that the media would at least try and support that fact. I mean, why the hell wasn’t Ross Perot allowed in the Presidential debates in the ’90s?

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This entry was inspired by rydw i’s post, but was influenced by Kim Stanley Robinson’s words.

August 10, 2004 • Posted in: General

2 Responses to “B.S. from The Electoral College”

  1. casey - August 10, 2004

    Yeah, I’m not a fan of compulsory voting. If people don’t want to vote, f*** ‘em. That’s their choice.

    But yeah, ranking them is cool.

  2. TB - August 17, 2004

    Actually, in Australia, it is only compulsory to attend the polling place and have your name checked off. Then you can cast a ballot unmarked. So if you still don’t care about who wins, just don’t vote for anybody on the ballot.

    Prosecution for not voting is pretty rare and the fine is real small too.

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