American democracy is ever evolving as evidenced by my previous examples. That ability is a testiment to the Founding Fathers and our country. A national popular vote for President is the next step.

Nobody is saying on here that the President can’t be elected by popular vote, just not under the current system.

At least not without amending the Constitution.

When making comparisons or assumptions as to what the Founding Fathers would think, it’s important to remember that our current society bears little to no resemblance to the United States that existed when the Constitution was written. Modern methods of communication could not have been conceived of 200 odd years ago. Literacy rates, educational levels, etc. are also significantly more advanced.

Sorry, but this is nonsense. The level of technology has nothing to do with whether the system created by the Constitution is still a viable system.

The beauty of the Constitution lies in two things.\

First, it’s simplicity. Modern constitutions are incredibly long and incredibly detailed — usually because they seek to cover every aspect of life. The U.S. Constitution was originally only four pages long, it contains general principles and rules that have guided the system for over 200 years quite well. I don’t see any need to scrap it.

Second, the Founders gave is the means to change the Constitution through the Amendment process. Yes, it requires a super majority of states for an amendment to be ratified, but that’s because changing the structure of government is not something that should be undertaken lightly.

Since today’s society is so different, perhaps we should just throw out the Constitution and start over. The Founding Fathers did not believe in a democracy; rather, the United States was a representative republic. As some of the quotes at the top of this site show, the Founding Fathers did not care for the idea of democracy since the majority could oppress the minority.

Now concerning the slaves and women comment. Women were not considered the same as men back then. Yes, we may agree that idea is outdated, but it doesn’t affect the ideas of the Constitution, ideas of liberty which can now be applied to both men and women. It is also illuminating that you refer to the 3/5 compromise. Do you know who was on both sides of the debate? Slavery advocates wanted slaves to count as full persons so they would have more representation in Congress; foes of slavery did not want slaves to count at all, thus giving free states more power. Once again, once society accepted blacks as equals (something some states had in place at the time the Constitution was adopted), the freedoms of the Bill of Rights applied to blacks as well as whites.

Nobody is saying on here that the President can’t be elected by popular vote, just not under the current system.

The Founding Fathers did not think women should vote. They held that slaves were only 3/5ths of a person. They opposed the direct election of US Senators.

The Founding Fathers believed in Democracy. A national popular vote for President is the embodiment of Democracy and a change that is long overdue.

People who attack the 17th amendment (direct election of US Senators) (passed in 1913) never mention the fact that when state legislators picked US Senators, bribery was common; so was gridlock, which meant that sometimes a state would go an entire year or more without any US Senator because the legislature couldn’t agree. There is a reason the 17th amendment passed

You say that as if it is a problem :)

OK, anarcho-capitalist snark aside, any state legislature than refused to send delegates to the Federal Government was shooting itself in the foot. The common incidence of states not being able to send delegates was more the result of the Federal Laws that dictated ow state legislatures appointed Senators.

I would think that there would be fewer incidences of unrepresented states if state legislatures were free to work out their own procedures for appointing senators.

The Electoral College is unrepresentative democracy. Our founders would be shocked to having us accept a system that makes most states completely irrelevant. Can you imagine how destabilizing they would have expected that to be?

Considering that the Founders created the Electoral College, what makes you think they’d be shocked by the fact that it still exists. I would submit that the EC is working just as they intended.

The Electoral College is unrepresentative democracy. Our founders would be shocked to having us accept a system that makes most states completely irrelevant. Can you imagine how destabilizing they would have expected that to be?

Trumpetbob –the states are pretty settled into being either swing or not. You’ll see little changes, but not much. If it’s a 50-50 race next year (and that much we can’t predict), we can write off about 32 states right now.

In any case, the point is, our government is just as corrupt, probably more so, than it was in 1880, our citizens pay far more in taxes, our politicians spend far more money on crap, our government schools are simply awful, our executive branch has its finger in every pie (and did so long before Bush II), and the list goes on.

See what wonders democracy brought about. You should be agitating for a return to a representative republic, which protects the liberties of the citizen from the depradations of the government, not arguing for more democracy.

The District method is a terrible, terrible idea, as it would replace a handful of battleground states with a handful of competitive districts. Don’t forget that gerrymandered districts have created wholly undemocratic and lopsided districts; the incentive to further bastardize our congressional representation districts to gain an Electoral College advantage would be enormous.

I prefer a constitutional amendment for direct election with a majority requirement (using instant-runoff voting, ideally), but the NPV plan is a sensible alternative. It would, I believe, pave the way for an amendment.

Finally, remember that while small states may have a *mathematical* advantage, very few of them get *any* attention from campaigns because very few are battlegrounds (NH was the only small state in play in November ’04). How many campaign visits are made to North Dakota and other small states that are reliably “red” or “blue”? How much gets invested in campaign organizing in those states? How much gets spent on presidential candidate TV ads? The answer: Just about zero. Those voters, and their views, are irrelevant.

I’m not sure whether, based on his point, that it would pass Supreme Court muster, but that’s more due to my own ignorance of the relevant cases and whether this would be considered a “federal matter” than anything else…

js290,
Your example of the Senators being selected by state legislators is inaccurate. There was an actual amendment, number 17, that officially changed that process. This post was talking about not following that route by not amending the Constitution.

Far from being “overrepresented in the electoral college,” the system gives smaller states as a voice in the federal government they would otherwise not have.