there is also the fact that our founders didn't trust the unwashed masses to vote for president and that is why we have electors who actually vote for President.

There were some people who wanted a direct vote and then others who wanted the President chosen by Congress or by the States

Based on the long piece I read in The New Yorker yesterday, that's it. The guys who drafted the Constitution really didn't think the average voter (who at the time was only 6% of the population) could be trusted to elect the President.

So one of the early suggestions was to have the President be chosen by Congress or the Supreme Court--but either of those would violate the separation of powers (Executive, Legislature, Courts). So they invented the Electoral College instead, and I must assume that at one point they actually met and voted.

I wonder--did the Electors always vote the way the people in their states wanted? What happened if they didn't?

Crosspost with le n!

Faithless elector: [link]

I wonder--did the Electors always vote the way the people in their states wanted?

Faithless electors! [link]

Classic crosspost.

there is also the fact that our founders didn't trust the unwashed masses to vote for president and that is why we have electors who actually vote for President.

Now, this--this is the explanation I understand. I think the intuitive understanding of democracy is the popular vote, and the idea what most people could not want something to happen, but it still does...it's clear that the citizenship test wasn't near thorough enough, because I don't get the stateness. In Jamaica our parishes and counties are more like containers for people--cities and coasts have character, but they don't get to vote, the same way states kinda get to vote here. To be radically simplistic.

But..I get that I don't get it, and it's math, and that's fine. It's certainly better than that preferential woowoo.

I would argue that one cannot underestimate the importance of the individual states and state issues if one wants to understand much of what goes on in the US, past and present.

Yeah. I don't see why states are that important, but y'all do, so it's fine. I can wait until us immigrants take over and don't understand your history. I estimate...a decade, if we knuckle down and toss out the contraceptives.

ita,

what is funny too is that our primary process mirrors this: the majority vote does not select the primary contender for Ds or Rs - we vote for the candidate, but the delegates are the ones who vote at the convention.

So we have at least 2 layers of this bullshit.

OK, some of those faithless electors were just dumb! Like the one who voted for John Ewards.

I don't see why states are that important, but y'all do, so it's fine

Think of them as entities that were once separate republics, basically independent nations. At the time the US was formed, they really were--the only form of government that bound them together was the British crown. When the colonies became independent, they had no central authority binding them altogether, and could well have just gone on their way as independent nations, like Italy in the 18th Century, or ancient Greece.

Which is why we're the "United States" of America, not just America.

Thank you, Captain Obvious.