http://www.manchester.ac.uk/…

Speaking ahead of the lecture, Dr Alex Belenky, a visiting scholar at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center of Engineering Systems Fundamentals and author of the book ‘How America Chooses Its Presidents’, said: “Under a certain composition of Congress to be sworn in January 2009, a tie in the 2008 Electoral College may result in a constitutional crisis in the form of an election stalemate, making the US Supreme Court intervention in the 2008 presidential election inevitable.

“Contrary to widely publicised beliefs of the Electoral College opponents, making the nationwide popular vote a decisive factor in determining the election outcome doesn’t require the elimination of the Electoral College.

“Slightly modified election rules would let the country elect a US President with a mandate from both the nation and the individual states and would make all the states ‘battleground’ in election campaigns while keeping the Electoral College as a backup.

Dr Belenky, who holds a PhD in systems analysis and applied mathematics, will tell an audience in The School of Mathematics that in Presidential elections held from 1948 to 2004, only 16.072% to 21.103% of all voting voters could have elected a President under the Electoral College system, and the modified election rules eliminate such election outcomes.

“Numerous publications in the national and international media bear evidence that reporters often offer incomplete and sometimes incorrect information about the system of electing a President in the US.

Moreover, lack of understanding of both the origins and the quantitative features of Electoral College, especially the way it works in close elections, causes some reporters abroad even to question whether the existing rules of US presidential elections are democratic.”

No, they aren’t democratic nor are they supposed to be. The fact we use the Electoral College shows you that it’s a republican form of election and not democratic. A constitutional republic. If they can’t figure out the difference between a republic and a democracy they should go back to school. If they are substituting the work “democracy” for “republic” they should quit misleading people. I agree there are issues with the election of the POTUS but then again I see issues with the entire federal government. If we roll it back to its original function the Electoral College will make a lot more sense.

http://www.salon.com/…

It’s far worse than you think — worse than hanging chads, faulty Diebold machines, and billionaires who bankroll last-minute attack ads. The American system for nominating a presidential candidate has about as much in common with actual democracy as Donald Duck has with a lake mallard. It’s not just that this year’s primaries have been further front-loaded, or that the early primary states aren’t representative of the nation at large. There is only passing fairness. There is only the semblance of order. There is nothing like equal representation under the law.

The Electoral College is confusing enough… then the states and the parties make it so much worse. I think the time when the possibility of doing a popular vote was impractical and potentially risky (read the notes from the Constitutional Convention) has passed. I think I’d rather see a instant-runoff system or similar.