Why do some people want to directly elect presidents?

[Graystar]

Simple-it keeps people in the populated states from telling the people in Montana how to run their lives.

So instead, people from Montana and Idaho get to tell the populated states how to run their lives...and somehow that's better, right?

 

[Delmar]

Actually Graystar, it keeps the city folks from running over the country folks. Or at least, that is how its supposed to work. If we put everything to the House of Reps, New York and California would be running the show as they have the greatest population densities, and that is NOT going to go over well here in Texas-nor should it.

Don't get too worried about it, Graystar. It's not like Alaska and Vermont are going to force people in New York and Cali to have shall issue CCW or better. More like eventually, Cali and New York will eventually find a way to take guns away from the rest of the country.

 

[CAnnoneer]

The current system still allows candidates to ignore states. George Claudius Bush did not even show up in Cali because the system guarantees he would lose all the Cali votes, and he did.

The current system also makes elections far more susceptible to falsification, because all the competitors need to rig is a couple of decisive states.

+1 Graystar. The electoral college tells me I am worth half as much as a voter in some smaller states. What happened to basic fairness?

While the initial intent may have been to help defend the rights of smaller states, give me a real example in which the current system has helped enforce that. The candidates show up for elections, scare everybody with their opponent's oppressive big fed gov, grab the votes, and run away until the next elections. Heh.

 

[Waitone]

States elect presidents through the electoral college. Our slow evolution toward a democracy has blurred or original intent. It makes no sense to me to have direct election of senators yet continue with the electoral college. If we return to state selection of senators the electoral college will make a whole lot of sense.

Bottom line is the electoral college prevents the populous states from running over less populous states. Once again we witness the brilliance of checks and balances. We're the ones who screwed up by moving to direct election of senators. Get rid of the electoral college and the election will immediately move to the major media markets and will be fought out in most likely 6 geographical locations. Flyover country will be ignored. <Rhetorical question--If direct election of presidents is such a good idea, how come it is we don't see a movement at the state level to get rid of the electoral college. I believe it was Colorado that turned thumbs down on a law to apportion EC votes based on popular vote in the state. Why? Because it would dilute the state's clout in the presidential election----just exactly as the dead european white guys figured.

Getting rid of EC is bad juju.