Diary: The Electoral College

Election Reform

For those of you who have read any of my articles and/or comments, you know that my focus is on 9/11 and the "war on terror". I sincerely believe that it stands as the most important event of our time.

However, with the uproar regarding election returns, electronic voting and the like, I'd like to open a dialogue here for those of you much more informed than I about this:

What's with this Electoral College thing?

Granted, it was written into the Constitution and modified in 1804 and again in 1961, but the truth is that we aren't carrying election results on horseback anymore and there should be a more representative means of electing the most important office in the land.

There are 538 electoral votes. California has 55 votes, one for every 600,000 or so in population, a population that includes everybody -- infants, long term residents and undocumented aliens, even the dead, but I guess there's a little more than one birth for each death, so there's somewhat a balance there.

One California vote is equal to Wyoming's only vote, which represents about 500,000 people. Interesting.

Hypothetically, if Candidate A receives 45% of the vote, Candidate B 42%, and all other third party candidates (or non-votes) a total of 13%, we've accounted for 100% of the votes representing 100% of the population. Yet, all of California's 55 electoral votes will go to Candidate A. Essentially, the wishes of about 18 Million people (55% of 55 votes) are ignored.

Seems to me we could do a better job of this.

Besides, American Idol tabulates more votes than the Presidential election and does it on a weekly basis via telephone and text messages. What's with that?