"The 36-day fight over Florida was just a symptom of the underlying
problem. "If we selected presidents like we select governors, senators,
representatives, and virtually every elected official in the United
States, Al Gore would have been elected president -- no matter which
chads were counted in Florida," notes George C. Edwards III in his new
book, Why the Electoral College Is Bad for America. But we don't select
presidents by a simple vote of the people. We conduct elections in all
50 states and the District of Columbia, and typically award candidates
electoral votes only if they win an entire state. The overall popular
vote is irrelevant. All that counts is the Electoral College, in which
each state gets as many votes as it has members of Congress. I wrote in
defense of the Electoral College in 2000, but Mr. Edwards, a political
scientist at Texas A&M University, has forced me to reconsider.
Upon reconsideration, I think the critics have the better argument. [more ]
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