If the electoral college is supposed to protect us from madmen like Trump, then why did it fail

[gyroscope]

...to do its job in 2016?

Seems to me the true job of the EC is to protect the status quo from another Roosevelt or Kennedy type candidate from ever getting into the WH again.

But an extreme right-wing nut-job like Trump? No problem.

[unblock]

1. that aspect of the electoral college has never worked as the founders hoped.

they didn't anticipate political parties and electors being selected for their loyalty, and they certainly didn't anticipate states passing laws requiring loyalty (at least on the first electoral ballot).

[dflprincess]

14. This

The electors were suppose to be independent and able to override any mistakes the public made.

[Yupster]

19. That's correct

Think of the US without political parties.

Here's how it was supposed to work (according to the 12th Amendment).

Each state legislature chooses wise residents who are not officeholders as electors.

Each elector looks around the country and picks someone who he thinks would make a good president and vice-president. They can't both be from the electors home state.

The House of Representatives chooses the president from the three people with the most electoral votes.

Senate chooses the vp from the top five.

It was thought it unlikely many people would get a majority of electoral votes.

An interesting system. I wonder what kind of president we'd get if it worked like they expected.

Notice, there's no provision for a popular vote of the people. It's not necessary for a president to be elected, even today.

Political parties ruined their system.

[Garrett78]

2. The purpose of the EC is to give sparsely populated states undue influence.

At least that's all I can figure.

[gyroscope]

9. In other words,

giving the most conservative states the most power, which certainly worked out well for the status quo in 2016. The EC is an insult to democracy.

[mountain grammy]

22. and that's exactly what it's done

[Garrett78]

24. CA has 67 times as many people as WY, but only 18 times as many electoral votes.

Why we accept that is beyond me.

[mountain grammy]

25. I know, it's bullshit.

and unacceptable.

[lagomorph777]

29. Yes, and specifically was designed to give slave states disproportionate power,

given that they were generally rural and were only allowed to count 60% of their slaves.

Same deal with the Senate.

Same states wield excess power now, and for the same purpose: white supremacy. Our slaveholder founding fathers would be so proud.

[Garrett78]

30. Yep, the EC is a "vestige of slavery."

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/electoral-college-slavery-constitution

[DFW]

3. Mainly because the political reality of the USA has changed somewhat since 1787

There is a LOT the founding fathers had no possible way to anticipate.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

21. Including population distribution. n/t

[mountain grammy]

28. I don't think they were very good at anticipating anything or even wanted to.

They were mostly wealthy white men who set up a government of wealthy white men, by wealthy white men, and for wealthy white men. Everyone not in that category has had to fight for every right ever since.

[brush]

4. Ahhh...super delagates of the repugs could've stopped trump, if they had them.

[gyroscope]

13. But if the EC failed to stop Trump in the general

what makes you think SDs (who are the EC of the primary) would have stopped him in the primary?

[stevenleser]

16. Super Delegates tend to be in favor of party orthodoxy.

The traditionalists in the RNC opposed Trump from the very beginning. If the RNC had super delegates they would have gotten together fairly early, probably either after New Hampshire or after Super Tuesday and coalesced behind a more traditional candidate giving that person a big advantage against Trump.

I'm guessing Cruz would have been the nominee.

[gyroscope]

20. Maybe, maybe not

Trump's popularity among republicans was so overwhelming in 2016 I don't think superdelegates could have stopped him even if they wanted to. there would have been tremendous backlash had they tried.

[brush]

17. Super delegates would've stopped him before the general and the whole EC thing.

[Takket]

5. the electoral college persists due to the GOP understanding...

that it is their ace in the hole to rule from the minority. Any reasonable outside auditing of our election system would declare our elections fraudulent for allowing it to exist.

[BigmanPigman]

6. The EC has got to go.

Also Gore and Robert Reich both said it is no longer fulfilling it's intended purpose and that there are ways to eliminate it without changing the constitution but with the GOP in the majority it won't happen...they benefit from its out of date existence.

[Corgigal]

7. Cause russia

and trees want to be heard.

[Va Lefty]

8. I don't really have an answer

but I doubt the founding fathers envisioned faux news or rw/hate radio

[no_hypocrisy]

10. Because certain people learned how to game The System.

First they gerrymandered a majority of the states to enable that in some states, even if 100% of registered democrats voted, a republican would win the electoral college votes.

That left about 5-6 states that can still swing either way.

Republicans only had to fund their campaign in those few states, get the polls to call the race dead even, and then fix the results by a maybe five figures.

And thus the electoral college votes appear to be democratically awarded.

[MichMan]

12. Gerrymandering has no effect on presidential, senate or gubernatorial elections

[KY_EnviroGuy]

23. It can if people feel disenfranchised and because of that, don't bother to vote. n/t

[DonaldsRump]

32. What about Maine and Nebraska EVs...

...which are not "winner take all" states for purposes of presidential election electoral votes? There, as far as I'm aware, the winner of each district in that state gets the electoral vote for that district.

What is the difference between the winner-takes-all rule and proportional voting, and which states follow which rule?

The District of Columbia and 48 states have a winner-takes-all rule for the Electoral College. In these States, whichever candidate receives a majority of the popular vote, or a plurality of the popular vote (less than 50 percent but more than any other candidate), takes all of the state’s Electoral votes.

Only two states, Nebraska and Maine, do not follow the winner-takes-all rule. In those states, there could be a split of Electoral votes among candidates through the state’s system for proportional allocation of votes. For example, Maine has four Electoral votes and two Congressional districts. It awards one Electoral vote per Congressional district and two by the state-wide, “at-large” vote. It is possible for Candidate A to win the first district and receive one Electoral vote, Candidate B to win the second district and receive one Electoral vote, and Candidate C, who finished a close second in both the first and second districts, to win the two at-large Electoral votes. Although this is a possible scenario, it has not actually happened.

https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/faq.html#wtapv

While it's just a handful of votes, some of the Maine and Nebraska EVs are indeed capable of being gerrymandered.

[struggle4progress]

11. The electoral college is intended to prevent the people from directly electing their President:

it's outmoded and we should get rid of it

[gyroscope]

15. I agree

the Constitution should evolve and not be stuck in the 17th century way of thinking.

If the Constitution never changed then to this day only white men who own property would be allowed to vote.

[Doreen]

18. Wasn't the electoral college set up in the first place to make sure

slave owners did not loose their slaves? If that is right how do you expect a voting rule made of evil do good?

[democratisphere]

26. Russian rigged election aided by the drumpf crime family and campaign.

[LonePirate]

27. Partisanship and ideology rain supreme in the Electoral College now.

Patriotism or love for the Constitution and country plays no role nowadays.

[DetlefK]

31. The EC was invented as a compromise to get the slave-owning states to join the Union.

They had lots of population but only very few voters. So a purely democratic system would have put them at a disadvantage. The compromise was to decouple the voter from the decision-making.

A shadowy cabinet making backroom-deals is supposed to protect democracy. Oh please.