Mathematician puts US electoral process under microscope
Posted on June 17th, 2008 at 8:13pm by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, Alex Belenky, Center of Engineering Systems Fundamentals, Congress, Constitution, electoral college, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, politics, School of Mathematics, United States, US Supreme Court, USA 5 Comments »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.
