Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenGum
... and are expected to vote for the candidate they always said they would (although I've heard they don't absolutely have to ... is this true?).
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Many states have passed laws that force them to vote for the winner of the state, and most are selected by the winning party, because there have been folks who didn't vote for their candidate (though it's never changed anything).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ZenGum
It isn't really clear, but it sounds like you'd rather use the popular vote.
Your point that "(t)he whole reason he's NOT is so that the country can give a 'mandate' to their leader" has me baffled. What better way could a country give a mandate to someone than by directly electing them?
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I do think direct election makes more sense. The mandate in this sense means 51% or more. Some of the penmen of the constitution thought that if we elected somebody with, say, 35% of the popular vote (i.e. we had more than one candidate), that it would mean the country didn't
really want him in office. All I see happening is people voting for the person they MOST agree with rather than someone they fully agree with. Even Washington (8 foot 20, fucking killing for fun) foresaw this creating a two party system, which it has. I'm all for popularly elected federal executives.