Political Forums - Time to Activate the Electoral College?

Political Forums (http://www.politicalchat.org/index.php)

- Politics (http://www.politicalchat.org/forumdisplay.php?f=25)

- - Time to Activate the Electoral College? (http://www.politicalchat.org/showthread.php?t=10999)

Time to Activate the Electoral College?

If Trump 'wins' the election, this may be the last gasp hope. The framers put a thing called the Electoral College in the constitution, and they didn't put it in to be a meaningless, voiceless formality. They put it in precisely as a safeguard against the sort of failure mode of democracy that can throw up a Trump.

It's a long shot, after all the time and tradition and processes that have relegated the college to meaninglessness, but maybe the old wheels could be made to finally turn, and the thing could actually do what it's there to do--stand between an irrational populist movement and the power of the presidency.

I expect relatively few electors would have to flip, to flip the outcome....

The framers also put a thing in the Constitution known as the second amendment.

And if the Electoral College were to pull some shit like you suggest, it would be time for the second amendment solution.

^^^ Figures. Alabama boy threatens rebellion.

Quote:

Originally Posted by donquixote99 (Post 331363)

If Trump 'wins' the election, this may be the last gasp hope. The framers put a thing called the Electoral College in the constitution, and they didn't put it in to be a meaningless, voiceless formality. They put it in precisely as a safeguard against the sort of failure mode of democracy that can throw up a Trump.

It's a long shot, after all the time and tradition and processes that have relegated the college to meaninglessness, but maybe the old wheels could be made to finally turn, and the thing could actually do what it's there to do--stand between an irrational populist movement and the power of the presidency.

I expect relatively few electors would have to flip, to flip the outcome....

(See bolded.)

Could you expand on that? Where is that mentioned?

Thanks.

would be a fitting last gasp for the worn out system of having an electoral college!

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJIII (Post 331385)

(See bolded.)

Could you expand on that? Where is that mentioned?

Thanks.

In the Federalist papers, for one place:

Quote:

As Alexander Hamilton writes in "The Federalist Papers," the Constitution is designed to ensure "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." The point of the Electoral College is to preserve "the sense of the people," while at the same time ensuring that a president is chosen "by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."

Factcheck.org: The Reason for the Electoral College

Quote:

Originally Posted by JJIII (Post 331385)

(See bolded.)

Could you expand on that? Where is that mentioned?

Thanks.

Quote:

The reason that the Constitution calls for this extra layer, rather than just providing for the direct election of the president, is that most of the nation’s founders were actually rather afraid of democracy. James Madison worried about what he called "factions," which he defined as groups of citizens who have a common interest in some proposal that would either violate the rights of other citizens or would harm the nation as a whole. Madison’s fear – which Alexis de Tocqueville later dubbed "the tyranny of the majority" – was that a faction could grow to encompass more than 50 percent of the population, at which point it could "sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens." Madison has a solution for tyranny of the majority: "A republic, by which I mean a government in which the scheme of representation takes place, opens a different prospect, and promises the cure for which we are seeking."

As Alexander Hamilton writes in "The Federalist Papers," the Constitution is designed to ensure "that the office of President will never fall to the lot of any man who is not in an eminent degree endowed with the requisite qualifications." The point of the Electoral College is to preserve "the sense of the people," while at the same time ensuring that a president is chosen "by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice."

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the...toral-college/

^^^^ Thanks to both of you.

Get real. The Electoral College isn't going to overturn a Trump victory. If it did, the shit would indeed hit the fan.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nailer (Post 331394)

Get real. The Electoral College isn't going to overturn a Trump victory. If it did, the shit would indeed hit the fan.

It is a comforting delusion though.