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Monday, November 5, 2007
Junk the Electoral College?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Should we abolish the Electoral College and use the popular vote alone to elect the president?
“The Electoral College does us an enormous favor by isolating recounts,” says University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. “Would anybody have wanted to see the Florida recount go national? That might have happened, and it will happen in pure popular elections any time there’s a close race.
“That means 300,000 precincts having recounts. It means lawsuits all across the country. And I guarantee you it means we will never get a president. The speaker of the House will be acting president for most of the four-year term, maybe the whole four-year term.”
The down side, of course, is that a candidate can win the presidency without winning the popular vote, as has happened four times in U.S. history. What do you think? Should we abolish the Electoral College?
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