User:Kosciuszko's Army/draft electoral convention

An outline for Electoral Thought in America.

It is annoying that the constitutional law relating to the election of the president gets the name Electoral College. Well, it's annoying that the Electoral College is a catch-all name for the people and process of electing the president.

Current Thinking
Right now, the term electoral college of the United States is synonymous with the policies adopted by the states.

48+1 WTA
Used by most states, the state's electors are awarded to the candidate who received the greatest number of votes in the state.

2 PRP
Used by two states to an extent, the electoral votes are awarded to more than one candidate.

Electoral Convention
The following are advantages that are innate in the electoral policy function of the electoral convention.

Independent of other constitutional institutions
The election of the president is treated primarily in Article 2, Section 1 of the Constitution. That state legislatures have the power to appoint electors as they wish is dealt with in Clause 2, the "States Have the Power to Appoint the Method of Selecting the Electors Clause."

Federalism
The claim that any change away from the 48+1 FPTP system is equivalent to abolishing the electoral college betrays a misunderstanding about the electoral college. The electoral college is a power of the state to choose the electors who will vote for president. It is not the system whereby we have 51 separate state-wide elections, although that is currently the norm of national electoral policy. Again, the electoral college is a power reserved to state legislatures—which gets as close to direct democracy as the Framers were comfortable with. It is understandable to equate the 48+1 FPTP with the electoral college as a convenience, but when that equated relationship becomes synonymous such that a move away from 48+1 FPTP becomes "anti-electoral college," it becomes a problem.

First of all, as long as the electoral college is not abolished with a constitutional amendment, no deviation away from the current national norm of electoral policy can accurately be described as "abolishing" or in some fashion ruining or discarding the electoral college. What it would be, is that it would be a new electoral norm that such an author was not happy about—yet the fact remains that, while the norms change, the electoral college patently does not.

Tara Ross is correct when she says, "In a pure democracy, 51 percent of the people can rule the other 49 percent all the time, without question—even when that bare majority is being tyrannical." So long as the electoral college is not abolished, however, no method of electing the president is purely democratic—in so far as "purely democratic method" means a bare majority of citizens anywhere in the United States can control electoral policy. <-- CAN THIS BE PROVED? Therefore, as long as the electoral college is not abolished, no deviation away from the current norm is

Devolution
The devolution of democracy built into the electoral convention is a fundamental feature. The delegates sent to the convention simultaneously serve two things:


 * 1) they vote for a president,
 * 2) their method of appointment indirectly, or something, somehow, represents the wishes of the representatives of a majority of the states, who get to pick how they are appointed.

Let's unpack that second thing a little bit more. The constitution says "Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors..." Legislature is understood to include multiple people, representatives elected in relatively small districts, and a deliberative process. It was the intention of the Framers that the method for each state to choose its electors should not be the whim of an individual, but should reflect the will of the citizens from the state; it is encoded in the constitution that electors will always be chosen by a group of people.

on to the part about delegates participating in the convention
The delegates participate in the convention. The former part was necessary because every elector represents both their preferred candidate & the group of people who choose them. It is not necessarily the case that electors will vote in a block—that determination is made by the people of the states—yet it is the case that the electors will be chosen by the self-same group of choosers. In that sense, on the hypothetical electoral-policy space, the delegations represent the state, analogously to how each delegation got representation at the Constitutional Convention and how each state in the House of Representatives is voted by the state (in fact, the devolution theory is consistent and may map onto the HoR contingency plan).

Each delegation represents the method decided upon by the will of that state's majority insofar as their wishes are represented by the laws agreed to by their legislative representatives. WHAT THESE DELEGATIONS REPRESENT IS THE SCOPE OR CLASS OF PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE ELECTORS. THE CHOOSERS CAN BE MORE OR LESS DEMOCRATIC. The delegation is the manifestation of the electoral policies of the several states. The power is given to the electoral policies by which a majority of electors tend to vote for the same candidate.

notes on devolution
Only a majority could decide how to dispose of them (the majority being simple or greater than simple, depending on the rules of the state/legislature). In theoretical terms, the will of the people as concerns the state's presidential electors would more or less track with the actual appointment of the electors—importantly, this is not exclusive to electing them. Assume a legislature appointing electors itself; still, the greater power of that body must in some way correspond to the majority. According to the rules of the state, which themselves are written and approved by the representatives of the people, either the majority of the legislature appoints all of the electors or the appointment is proportional among the various factions in the body. Again, either way will depend upon how the people's representatives agreed to before the date for choosing the electors. The fact that the majority of the representatives establish how things go in the legislature which determines how things go for the electors underlines everything relating to the electoral convention.

Electoral Policy
Electoral policy is something other than the way the electoral college works today. Importantly, electoral policy is a mixture of delegates-at-convention, state law, and lawful execution.

Actual Fact
As a matter of actual fact, laws get executed by governments.