you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 21 points 4 days ago (3 children)

The electoral college almost made sense when the president was essentially a functionary of what Congress wanted.

Indirect election of someone with actual power is indefensible. Every person with power should either be directly answerable to an elected office or have so little power that their tyrannies can be ignored.

  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
  • [–] 17 points 4 days ago

    The electoral college almost made sense in an era when the fastest a message could travel was by horse and tabulating votes for the entire nation down to the individual was infeasible. This is obviously no longer the case.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 5 points 4 days ago

    Actually, the Presidency was a function of what the States wanted. State legislatures picked the electors directly, then they would all gather in one place to choose the President. It was a good enough system, when we didn't really have the technology to run nationwide elections.

  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 1 point 4 days ago

    Also notable that originally #1 vote was president and #2 was vice president. It was designed to be a coalition government but then parties got together and started amending the constitution.

  • source
  • parent