Sun 12/16 @ 9-10AM
The U.S. is the only country in the world in which its leader isn’t chosen by popular vote, but by an antiquated system called the Electoral College, conceived in an era before instantaneous communications and transportation that exceeded the speed a horse could run so that t allowed time for deliberation. It was conceived in part as a sop to slave states to count slaves as part of their population even though they couldn’t vote and at a time when the population disparity between states was a fraction of what it is now (each state is assigned two automatic votes, comparable with its senate representation).
By the 1860s slavery was gone; trains moved people quickly, and the telegraph provided for messages to be sent instantly. Yet the electoral college persists and, in 2000 and 2016, it gave us a president the majority didn’t choose (in 2016, it was a landslide in favor of the loser, Hillary Clinton, who crushed Trump in the popular vote.)
The next Sunday morning forum about civic issues at the Unitarian Universalism Society of Cleveland is called “Presidential Voting Systems: Is the Electoral College the Best Method?”
Bowling Green State University professor Robert Alexander, founding director of BGSU’s Democracy and Public Policy Research Network, will address these issues, share how they’ve impacted our presidential elections, and point to some attempts to repair the disparities it creates, and spotlight other solutions that have been proposed.
The forums are free and open to all. There’s no proselytizing. There probably is coffee.
presidential-voting-systems-is-the-electoral-college-the-best-method/