David’s Reviews > Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College > Status Update

This sentence gets the tone of the book:
"A presidential election system that ignores 100 million voters [because they live in states that won't be in question in the election] and lets the loser win is not the way to [strengthen the world's oldest continually functioning democracy]."

Arguing against 3 myths of popular vote:
1. Big cities will dominate
2. National popular vote would end our 2 party system
3. A national popular vote would benefit Democrats

Solid arguments dismantle those positions, and several collateral ones as well at the same time. "If you get the most votes, you win, if not, you lose." Seems simple enough.

Oh, the direct election of the president came so close to passage in 1970, but it seems even then some kind of subterfuge made people back away from it. It never came as close to passage again, despite Bayh's reintroduction of the law in every congress for another decade. No surprise that a character like Strom Thurmond figures in a story like this.

Great story about how we came fairly close to replacing the electoral college with a straight popular vote in the late 60s, on the heels of the 1968 election where George Wallace's 3rd party run nearly caused the election to be thrown to the House of Reps to be decided. But when it came to the Senate, they couldn't overcome a filibuster. It seems some things haven't changed .

Plenty of examples through time of candidates and others who disliked/hated the electoral college system. The voters in an "all or nothing" state who voted for anyone but the top vote getter in their state essentially have their votes disregarded. And it didn't take long for the displeasure to land, starting barely a decade after the Constitutional convention.

In "The Fraught Origins of the Electoral College" we're treated to many discussion points between the framers of the constitution, which seems to show that it's a compromise designed to appease southern slave states so they'd be willing to approve the new charter. About the strongest statement for this process was on the order of "the states will at least accept this method." Not high praise!

Starting chapter 1, examining whether the founders really thought a pure democracy made sense or if the citizens were not really capable of the demands of such a government.

The intro is very much in line with my feelings about the state of the electoral college. It also promises the book will offer refutations to popular myths about the college, so I want to try to internalize as much of that as is reasonable (or possible!).