Exactly Why You Have an Electoral System

[Weatherman2020]

It’s too easy to cheat with the popular vote, primary reason Democrats want a popular vote.

From Tara Ross:

During this week in 1876, the presidential election of 1876 was supposed to be decided. Except it wasn’t. Instead, disputes over the election outcome would continue all the way through March.

It must have been ugly—but it could have been even worse.

The Electoral College helped the country that year in an unexpected way: It isolated election disputes to only four states. Without the Electoral College, every vote in every state could have been contested. Would things have spun completely out of control?

They truly could have. In those post-Civil War years, the nation was starkly divided between North and South. Many Southerners were still chafing under the restrictions of Reconstruction. Fraud and dishonesty were too pervasive. Black voters were sometimes denied access to the polls. At least one study has concluded that a “fair and free election” would have turned out differently in 1876.

In other words, the scene was set for a hotly contested political contest.

Republicans had nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio. Meanwhile, Democrats had nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the Governor of New York.

The results on Election Day couldn’t have made anyone happy. Hayes appeared to have about 250,000 fewer popular votes, nationwide, than Tilden; however, the all-important electoral vote was still up for grabs. Twenty electors were disputed in four states. In Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, state officials couldn’t agree on who had won. Thus, multiple slates of electors were submitted from each of those states. One electoral vote in Oregon was also disputed. Hayes needed all 20 of these electors to win. Tilden needed just one.

Can you imagine what CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC would do with such a situation today?!?

Americans in 1876 didn’t have the benefits of such modern technology, of course. Instead, they waited for weeks to see which candidate would be declared the victor.

The situation prompted plenty of political grandstanding!

The Senate was then controlled by Republicans, while the House was controlled by Democrats. No one knew what to do about the conflicting sets of election returns, but Congress finally created a (constitutionally questionable) Electoral Commission. That committee was supposed to be evenly divided, with seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one independent Supreme Court Justice. It didn’t turn out that way. Instead, Independent Justice David Davis was unexpectedly elected to the Senate by the Illinois state legislature. His spot on the commission was taken by Justice Joseph Bradley, a Republican appointee.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican-controlled Commission soon decided all 20 disputed electoral votes in favor of Hayes, throwing the election to him.

Naturally, Democrats were upset, and a filibuster nearly sidetracked congressional acceptance of the Commission’s findings. Eventually, though, Congress brokered a compromise: Republicans indicated that they would be willing to bring Reconstruction to an end. In return, southern congressmen began withdrawing their objections.

Hayes was finally declared the winner of the election at about 4:00 a.m. on March 2. Of course, action came about mostly because Congress had its back up against a wall: Only two days then remained in President Ulysses S. Grant’s term.

After all the turmoil, Rutherford B. Hayes was finally sworn in as the country’s 19th President on March 4, 1877.

P.S. At this juncture, you know I must offer a friendly reminder that a more complete discussion of these issues can be found in my book, "Why We Need the Electoral College."

‪---------------------------‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
If you enjoy these history posts, please know that it is important to interact with them. This site will weed these posts out of your feed otherwise. Please also know that I don’t make these rules. I am just letting you know how things work.

Gentle reminder: History posts are copyright © 2013-2019 by Tara Ross. I appreciate it when you use the share feature instead of cutting/pasting.

Permalink: http://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-1876-election

#TDIH #OTD #AmericanHistory #USHistory #liberty #freedom #ShareTheHistor

 

[bluzman61]

It’s too easy to cheat with the popular vote, primary reason Democrats want a popular vote.

From Tara Ross:

During this week in 1876, the presidential election of 1876 was supposed to be decided. Except it wasn’t. Instead, disputes over the election outcome would continue all the way through March.

It must have been ugly—but it could have been even worse.

The Electoral College helped the country that year in an unexpected way: It isolated election disputes to only four states. Without the Electoral College, every vote in every state could have been contested. Would things have spun completely out of control?

They truly could have. In those post-Civil War years, the nation was starkly divided between North and South. Many Southerners were still chafing under the restrictions of Reconstruction. Fraud and dishonesty were too pervasive. Black voters were sometimes denied access to the polls. At least one study has concluded that a “fair and free election” would have turned out differently in 1876.

In other words, the scene was set for a hotly contested political contest.

Republicans had nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio. Meanwhile, Democrats had nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the Governor of New York.

The results on Election Day couldn’t have made anyone happy. Hayes appeared to have about 250,000 fewer popular votes, nationwide, than Tilden; however, the all-important electoral vote was still up for grabs. Twenty electors were disputed in four states. In Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, state officials couldn’t agree on who had won. Thus, multiple slates of electors were submitted from each of those states. One electoral vote in Oregon was also disputed. Hayes needed all 20 of these electors to win. Tilden needed just one.

Can you imagine what CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC would do with such a situation today?!?

Americans in 1876 didn’t have the benefits of such modern technology, of course. Instead, they waited for weeks to see which candidate would be declared the victor.

The situation prompted plenty of political grandstanding!

The Senate was then controlled by Republicans, while the House was controlled by Democrats. No one knew what to do about the conflicting sets of election returns, but Congress finally created a (constitutionally questionable) Electoral Commission. That committee was supposed to be evenly divided, with seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one independent Supreme Court Justice. It didn’t turn out that way. Instead, Independent Justice David Davis was unexpectedly elected to the Senate by the Illinois state legislature. His spot on the commission was taken by Justice Joseph Bradley, a Republican appointee.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican-controlled Commission soon decided all 20 disputed electoral votes in favor of Hayes, throwing the election to him.

Naturally, Democrats were upset, and a filibuster nearly sidetracked congressional acceptance of the Commission’s findings. Eventually, though, Congress brokered a compromise: Republicans indicated that they would be willing to bring Reconstruction to an end. In return, southern congressmen began withdrawing their objections.

Hayes was finally declared the winner of the election at about 4:00 a.m. on March 2. Of course, action came about mostly because Congress had its back up against a wall: Only two days then remained in President Ulysses S. Grant’s term.

After all the turmoil, Rutherford B. Hayes was finally sworn in as the country’s 19th President on March 4, 1877.

P.S. At this juncture, you know I must offer a friendly reminder that a more complete discussion of these issues can be found in my book, "Why We Need the Electoral College."

‪---------------------------‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
If you enjoy these history posts, please know that it is important to interact with them. This site will weed these posts out of your feed otherwise. Please also know that I don’t make these rules. I am just letting you know how things work.

Gentle reminder: History posts are copyright © 2013-2019 by Tara Ross. I appreciate it when you use the share feature instead of cutting/pasting.

Permalink: http://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-1876-election

#TDIH #OTD #AmericanHistory #USHistory #liberty #freedom #ShareTheHistor

Thank GOD our forefathers were intelligent and wise enough to create the Electoral College. This, of course, prevents a FEW areas of highly populated cities and states from dictating who our president will be. PURE GENIUS by our forefathers.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

 

[bluzman61]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

I explained WHY in my post, dimwit.

 

[Weatherman2020]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

Stinky bait. You’re a retard or a troll, so go tell your mommy you need to clean your room

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

It doesn't. Unless you have better than a 2nd Grader's reading comprehension.

Essentially, the OP explains that the electoral college makes it SIGNIFICANTLY less likely that fraud can sway a presidential election, as it confines the potential effects of any fraud to the electors of the state in which the fraud takes place. No EC, and 1,000,000 fraudulent votes in Delaware could swing 2016's popular vote the other way. With the EC, 1,000,000 fraudulent votes in Delaware can never sway more than 3 electorals.

In terms of fraud protection, it's like having multiple sections in a ship's hull to prevent a single breach from taking on enough water to sink the ship.

Honestly, if you can't understand the logistics being presented here, I'd have to assume you're actually expending effort on remaining ignorant.

 

[bluzman61]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

Stinky bait. You’re a retard or a troll, so go tell your mommy you need to clean your room

Pogo proves time and time again with their inane posts they are a brainwashed loony lib, with an I.Q. of MAYBE room temperature.

 

[Thunk]

Without the Electoral College, every vote in every state could have been contested.

And I wouldn't put it past the democrat filth to do exactly that!

 

[22lcidw]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

Voting precincts representing inner cities are the most questionable in the nation. Accusations of voter fraud automatically brings calls of racism. Other Prog areas are the same way. This is why people are purchasing weapons. Women are buying them also. Why Prog women would does not make sense since they vote for all of this mayhem.

 

[fncceo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

It does, if you actually read it.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

It does, if you actually read it.

Once AGAIN I actually did read it. And it described who had how many and what they did about it but it doesn't explain how the EC system saved the day.

There have been innumerable close disputed elections for Governors and Mayors and Senators (etc etc etc) with no Electrical College involved, and they all got resolved, didn't they.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

Voting precincts representing inner cities are the most questionable in the nation. Accusations of voter fraud automatically brings calls of racism. Other Prog areas are the same way. This is why people are purchasing weapons. Women are buying them also. Why Prog women would does not make sense since they vote for all of this mayhem.

That's a very wordy hallucination but it doesn't relate to the topic.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

Read the OP.

I did. I always do.

Again, nice review of 1876, but it doesn't address the very question it brings up. It just relates how it was done in this case, even calling the process Constitutionally questionable.

For that matter you didn't defend your position in the first line either.

Stinky bait. You’re a retard or a troll, so go tell your mommy you need to clean your room

Yeah I knew you couldn't defend either one. I have being right ALL the time. No mystery.

 

[Wyatt earp]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

You can never admit my values are like yours pigo, nor yours like mine.

Just because you have the power to kill 50 million potential liberal voters and bring in new ones doesn't mean you can tell me what to do.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

It doesn't. Unless you have better than a 2nd Grader's reading comprehension.

Essentially, the OP explains that the electoral college makes it SIGNIFICANTLY less likely that fraud can sway a presidential election, as it confines the potential effects of any fraud to the electors of the state in which the fraud takes place. No EC, and 1,000,000 fraudulent votes in Delaware could swing 2016's popular vote the other way. With the EC, 1,000,000 fraudulent votes in Delaware can never sway more than 3 electorals.

In terms of fraud protection, it's like having multiple sections in a ship's hull to prevent a single breach from taking on enough water to sink the ship.

Honestly, if you can't understand the logistics being presented here, I'd have to assume you're actually expending effort on remaining ignorant.

There's no way you'd get "1,000,000 fraudulent votes in Delaware" except under another hallucination.

Again, the issue wasn't fraudulent votes in Delaware --- it was around what to do with multiple slates of electors. That's not supposed to happen, and it could have been resolved by getting accurate counts of the final votes in those states, or whatever method those states decided to use.

NO state is required to hold an election at all, or if it does, to use the totals of that vote to pick electors. It can pick them any way it likes. Here we had three states that couldn't come to terms on who their electors were.

 

[Pogo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

You can never admit my values are like yours pigo, nor yours like mine.

Just because you have the power to kill 50 million potential liberal voters and bring in new ones doesn't mean you can tell me what to do.

What the **** are you snorting? Not only are you not the OP, you just got here.

But let's pretend I'm the one that needs reading comprehension, right?

 

[skews13]

It’s too easy to cheat with the popular vote, primary reason Democrats want a popular vote.

From Tara Ross:

During this week in 1876, the presidential election of 1876 was supposed to be decided. Except it wasn’t. Instead, disputes over the election outcome would continue all the way through March.

It must have been ugly—but it could have been even worse.

The Electoral College helped the country that year in an unexpected way: It isolated election disputes to only four states. Without the Electoral College, every vote in every state could have been contested. Would things have spun completely out of control?

They truly could have. In those post-Civil War years, the nation was starkly divided between North and South. Many Southerners were still chafing under the restrictions of Reconstruction. Fraud and dishonesty were too pervasive. Black voters were sometimes denied access to the polls. At least one study has concluded that a “fair and free election” would have turned out differently in 1876.

In other words, the scene was set for a hotly contested political contest.

Republicans had nominated Rutherford B. Hayes, the Governor of Ohio. Meanwhile, Democrats had nominated Samuel J. Tilden, the Governor of New York.

The results on Election Day couldn’t have made anyone happy. Hayes appeared to have about 250,000 fewer popular votes, nationwide, than Tilden; however, the all-important electoral vote was still up for grabs. Twenty electors were disputed in four states. In Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, state officials couldn’t agree on who had won. Thus, multiple slates of electors were submitted from each of those states. One electoral vote in Oregon was also disputed. Hayes needed all 20 of these electors to win. Tilden needed just one.

Can you imagine what CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC would do with such a situation today?!?

Americans in 1876 didn’t have the benefits of such modern technology, of course. Instead, they waited for weeks to see which candidate would be declared the victor.

The situation prompted plenty of political grandstanding!

The Senate was then controlled by Republicans, while the House was controlled by Democrats. No one knew what to do about the conflicting sets of election returns, but Congress finally created a (constitutionally questionable) Electoral Commission. That committee was supposed to be evenly divided, with seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one independent Supreme Court Justice. It didn’t turn out that way. Instead, Independent Justice David Davis was unexpectedly elected to the Senate by the Illinois state legislature. His spot on the commission was taken by Justice Joseph Bradley, a Republican appointee.

Unsurprisingly, the Republican-controlled Commission soon decided all 20 disputed electoral votes in favor of Hayes, throwing the election to him.

Naturally, Democrats were upset, and a filibuster nearly sidetracked congressional acceptance of the Commission’s findings. Eventually, though, Congress brokered a compromise: Republicans indicated that they would be willing to bring Reconstruction to an end. In return, southern congressmen began withdrawing their objections.

Hayes was finally declared the winner of the election at about 4:00 a.m. on March 2. Of course, action came about mostly because Congress had its back up against a wall: Only two days then remained in President Ulysses S. Grant’s term.

After all the turmoil, Rutherford B. Hayes was finally sworn in as the country’s 19th President on March 4, 1877.

P.S. At this juncture, you know I must offer a friendly reminder that a more complete discussion of these issues can be found in my book, "Why We Need the Electoral College."

‪---------------------------‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬
If you enjoy these history posts, please know that it is important to interact with them. This site will weed these posts out of your feed otherwise. Please also know that I don’t make these rules. I am just letting you know how things work.

Gentle reminder: History posts are copyright © 2013-2019 by Tara Ross. I appreciate it when you use the share feature instead of cutting/pasting.

Permalink: http://www.taraross.com/post/tdih-1876-election

#TDIH #OTD #AmericanHistory #USHistory #liberty #freedom #ShareTheHistor

Wrong again numbnuts.

At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, state delegates came together to draft what would become the U.S. Constitution, establishing the rule of law for the newly founded United States of America. The country, still in its infancy, had liberated itself from the colonial rule of Great Britain’s King George III in the American Revolution.

With George Washington presiding, the delegates discussed the current state of affairs among the 13 states governed under the Articles of Confederation, which was proving insufficient in maintaining federal governance among the states. At the urging of Virginia Delegate James Madison and others, they began to draft a new national constitution, which would design the role and power of the new government, including elections of head of state. But steeped in the throws of the slave trade, and a little less than 100 years before the Civil War, there was already a divide between the interests of northern and southern states.
The idea of a simple popular-vote election struck fear in delegates from slaveholding states because while their states boasted large populations, much of the populace was comprised of enslaved black people who could not vote. By contrast, northern states had smaller populations with a greater number of eligible voters (read: white, male, and generally property-owning).

“The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes,” said Madison, who would later become the nation’s fourth president. “The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to the fewest objections.”

Fearful of being outnumbered, Madison pushed for the electoral college, and championed representative government by state as a solution. Seats in the House of Representatives would be based on population size, and delegates from slave-holding states sought to have slaves included in the count for total population. Those opposed recognized this would mean fewer seats from the smaller states.

And so the states made several compromises. The first, known as the Three-Fifths Compromise, was a racist, manipulative policy that outlined the rules for legislative representation and taxation of the states. It read, “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.”

Enslaved black people, ordinarily only regarded as property, were declared three fifths of a person in order to strengthen the power of the white men who kept them in bondage. It would remain that way until the 14th Amendment granted citizenship to slaves in 1868.

The second compromise was the advent of the electoral college in deciding the general election. Instead of popular votes, electors would make selections on behalf of their states.

The way electors were chosen varied by state, but they were usually elected officials and party leaders, as is true today. The number of electors for each state was set to equal its total number of congressional representatives: two senators and however many representatives it had in the house. (In 1961, the District of Columbia would be awarded three electoral votes as well.)

There is no federal law that governs how electors cast their vote — this, too, is determined by state law, both now and then. Candidates had to receive a majority of electoral votes to win an election. So in deciding how to elect the leaders of government, slaveholding states were advantaged by the size of their slaveholding populations.

Virginia, which boasted the largest total population, saw many of its own occupy the White House in the early years of presidency, including Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Madison. The impact of the electoral college and the dominance of southern electors is even clearer when considering how many presidents were slave owners themselves — 12 in all, including eight who owned slaves while in office. Still, many others endorsed “states rights,” coded language that’s still used today with the introduction of emerging voter suppression laws, designed to alienate and disenfranchise voters.

Since its creation, there have been four elections where the electoral college winner did not receive the popular vote. Two have come this century: the 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush and the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

 

[fncceo]

Nice review of 1876.

But it doesn't explain why we need an EC does it.

It does, if you actually read it.

Once AGAIN I actually did read it. And it described who had how many and what they did about it but it doesn't explain how the EC system saved the day.

There have been innumerable close disputed elections for Governors and Mayors and Senators (etc etc etc) with no Electrical College involved, and they all got resolved, didn't they.

A city can hobble along without a mayor for a few months. A state can survive with a Senator or two out of the Senate for the time it takes to resolve an election dispute.

How long should a country be expected to be without a President because one side has stuffed the ballot box?