It makes you wonder. People dislike the Electoral College because of its “winner takes all” nature, discarding the votes in a given state of those who voted for X, if Y got the majority of votes there. Instead, they argue, we should use the popular vote to elect the president.
But why should we stop with “one man, one vote”? Why is my vote all or nothing to a single candidate? Why should I be forced to vote completely and utterly one way, if my personal inclination is that both candidates are schlubs? Why shouldn’t I be allowed to cast 0.54 votes for Kerry, 0.45 votes for Bush, and 0.01 votes for the Legalize Everything Party?
Do I cast support to more than one candidate? Very well then I cast support to more than one candidate,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.).
They’ve got me at “discarding the votes”.
I actually sort of like the electoral college. It isn’t really a matter of “discarding the votes,” any more than the votes that go to the loser in any political contest are “discarded.”
At the moment, it appears to distort politics some by making everyone focus on bang-for-the-buck states. Sway an extra hundred thousand in North Dakota, and you get 3 EVs. Sway an extra hundred thousand in Florida, and you get 27.
On the other hand, I strongly doubt if North Dakota would get much attention in a purely popular vote system, anyway. And in most elections, the EC magnifies a broad consensus as to the candidate — you don’t just have to win in a few places, you have to win in a lot of places, geographically.