Electoral College Question

[Emperah]

The only good ting bout de systemm is how dem cyan vote in school board ppl, chief a po-lice an dem ting deh. When it come tuh de big tings dem vote really nuh count cah de powah is given tuh smaddy else to sposedly vote pan dem behalf. Which is like when yuh yute waan mc donalds but yuh feel seh wendy's is betta suh a dat yuh gi dem.


Mi have a question....
Does anybody know WHO is in de electoral college?

[RichD]

Mi have a question....
Does anybody know WHO is in de electoral college?

once they have been selected everybody knows.

there is a process for nomination and selection of the electors and their names are know its not a secret society.

[Emperah]

how dem get selected, who select dem, how come dem nuh kno before, which ballot are they on to get selected?

[RichD]

how dem get selected, who select dem, how come dem nuh kno before, which ballot are they on to get selected?

google is yuh fren

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=How+are+members+of+the+electoral+college+selected#

[Tropicana]

MORE complicated business:

It's presidential election day. You make a selection at your polling place and with your resplendent "I voted" sticker step into the November air, satisfied you've made your wishes known. But what if your vote, the one you thought you cast for a presidential candidate, was actually used to elect someone whose name you don't even know -- who would cast a presidential vote on your behalf?This may sound bizarre, but this is exactly what takes place during a U.S. presidential election. By voting for a Republican presidential candidate, for example, you are really voting for a member of the Electoral College who is expected -- but not required -- to vote along party lines, too.
The votes of the Electoral College, comprised of 538 electors divvied up by state, elect the president weeks after Americans vote in a presidential election.
State legislatures are responsible for nominating electors. The process can actually differ from state to state. In general, though, the two most common ways are:

• The elector is nominated by his or her state party committee (perhaps to reward many years of service to the party).
• The elector campaigns for a spot and the decision is made during a vote held at the state's party convention.

Usually, electors are people who are politically active in their party (be it Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Republican or Independent) or connected to the political arena. This includes political activists, party leaders, elected officials of the state and even people who have personal or political ties to the presidential candidates.
And while the Constitution makes no mention of qualifications that must be met to become an Electoral College member, it does determine an Electoral College member cannot be:

• a member of Congress
• a high-ranking U.S. official in a position of "trust or profit," which refers to a member of Congress accepting an appointment to executive office
• someone who has "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" against the U.S. [source: U.S. National Archives and Records]

So could a member of the electoral college -- whom you've helped elect by casting your presidential vote -- decide to support an opponent instead? Find out in the next section.

Legislating the 'Faithless' and Electoral College Systems

The Electoral College members for each state are voted on by the state's residents on voting day. In some states, the electors' names are printed on the ballots directly under the presidential candidates' names or grouped by party somewhere else on the ballot. In other states, the names of electoral college nominees are not even listed on the ballot.
When you vote for a presidential and vice-presidential candidate on the ballot, you are really voting for the electors of the political party (or unaffiliated candidate) by which they were nominated. Take the North Carolina General Statute § 163-209, for example: "A vote for the candidates for President and Vice-President named on the ballot is a vote for the electors..." [source: North Carolina General Assembly].
This is the case for 48 states. It's known as the winner-take-all system, where all electors go with the candidate who wins the popular vote regardless of how close the vote is. So if the Democratic candidate narrowly wins the popular vote in Texas, for instance, 38 Democratic electors (38 being the total number of electoral votes in the state) will represent Texas as a voting block.
The other system, known as the congressional district method, is observed in Maine and Nebraska. In these states, the vote is split between the electoral vote which goes to the winner of the statewide popular vote and the congressional district vote. The state is divided into congressional districts, each with one electoral vote. The winner of the popular vote in each district is awarded an electoral vote. Potentially, this could result in a divided electoral vote but so far it has not happened in either state [source: Cornell University Law School].
Most of the time, electors cast their votes for the candidate who has received the most votes in the state he or she represents, or for the candidate affiliated with his or her political party. However, there have been times when electors have voted contrary to the people's decision. When electors cast their vote without following the popular vote or their party vote, they are known as faithless electors [source: Weingast].
In response to faithless electors' actions, at least two dozen states have created laws to enforce an elector's pledge to his or her party vote or the popular vote. Some states even assess a misdemeanor charge and a fine. For example, the state of North Carolina fines faithless electors $10,000.
However, a number of scholars believe such state-level laws would not survive constitutional challenge; of the 158 faithless electors, none have ever been punished [source: Project Vote Smart].

[Tropicana]

Why the founding fathers set up the electoral college:

What could the Founding Fathers -- the framers of the Constitution -- have been thinking in 1787? Did they not realize that the Electoral College system effectively took the power to select the American president of out of the hands of the American people? Yes, they did. In fact, the Founders always intended that the states -- not the people -- select the president.

Also See: Electoral College: Why Does it Work This Way?

Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution grants the power to elect the president and vice president to the states through the Electoral College system. Under the Constitution, the highest-ranking U.S. officials elected by direct popular vote of the people are the governors of the states.

Beware the Tyranny of the Majority

To be brutally honest, the Founding Fathers gave the American public of their day little credit for political awareness when it came to selecting the president. Here are some of their telling statements from the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

"A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment." -- Delegate Gerry, July 25, 1787

"The extent of the country renders it impossible, that the people can have the requisite capacity to judge of the respective pretensions of the candidates." -- Delegate Mason, July 17, 1787

"The people are uninformed, and would be misled by a few designing men." -- Delegate Gerry, July 19, 1787

The Founding Fathers had seen the dangers of placing ultimate power into a single set of human hands. Accordingly, they feared that placing unlimited power to elect the president into the politically naive hands of the people could lead to a "tyranny of the majority." In response, they created the Electoral College system as a process to insulate the selection of the president from the whims of the public.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/thepoliticalsystem/a/Why-Keep-The-Electoral-College.htm

[Emperah]

Suh up tuh dis day de american public is still tekkin fi dyam fools.
Look like dem nuh mind eedah
Aye Sah so sad indeed.

[Tropicana]

Hey....the founding fathers knew best and they are sacred. Don't tick off the US based boardites by making fun of the founding fathers. Even the Jamaicans who have been in the US for a long time have definitely drunk massive doses of the Koolaid and you will hurt their feelings.

Come come now, when you look at some of the states with the inbred hilbilies and redneck, po', tobacco chewing crackers. You know the ones that fly that terrifying flag





......or watch a shows like Jerry Springer or even Beyond Scared Straight for a glimpse of the state of the next generation, I think the founding founders were right on the money. President Obama has his work cut out for him. You know I was in Vegas a while a go and there was a sign on the bus "No smoking, no tobacco chewing" I kid you not. There definitely are elements of the US population that are at the shallow end of the gene pool and lower end of the IQ spectrum. This needs to be taken into account in how they design their system.

Disclaimer: I did not say all or most.

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

[Tropicana]

I didn't realize George Will was still at it.

[Emperah]

What do de rednecks haffee duh wid de college?
dem vote nuh count anyhow.

[Tropicana]

The founding fathers didn't trust the American people to choose their own President.

I am pointing out that because of some of the elements in the population, they had every reason to be concerned.

I repeat what 2 of the founding fathers said:

To be brutally honest, the Founding Fathers gave the American public of their day little credit for political awareness when it came to selecting the president. Here are some of their telling statements from the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

"A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of some one set of men dispersed through the Union, and acting in concert, to delude them into any appointment." -- Delegate Gerry, July 25, 1787

"The people are uninformed, and would be misled by a few designing men." -- Delegate Gerry, July 19, 1787



I am pointing out that with the inbred hilbillies and the tobacco chewing po' crackers in the deep south, it turns out that they have every reason to be concerned. Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, which were on the list of the original 13 colonies, do have these types within their population. Appalachia is a cultural region stretching from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia so I am sure they had these people in mind too when they decided to protect the American people from themselves by setting up the electoral college. I posted some videos to provide examples of the types and the level of ignorance.

Without the electoral college, perhaps the votes of these elements of society would have had a larger influence.

[evanovitch]

Y u no read n inform uself in private....geez....u ever been in the South....do u know that MOST blacks still live dere...so u a call dem inbred etc too....wat all dis fah...di election ovah...if u STILL need to educate self bout the system y not do it privately in ur reading time...u mek mi teet nedge some times

[Emperah]

DWL mi cyaan bleev mi yeye.
Why shi need fi dweet in private? Yuh nuh like wah de foundin faddaz did tink a de ppl?
An all now...