Quote:
Originally Posted by Over
What?! I've heard something about this in a tv series episode (Boston Legal), but I didn't give it any credit.
What's the story? And what kind of democracy is that?!
|
Actually the US is a representative republic not a democracy. (If we were actual democracy the people who could vote would vote on any and all legislation. - I know it's splitting hairs but ....)
I believe, but am not entirely sure, that the electorial college was put in place to protect people from their own folly. Many people back then were ignorant and illiterate and needed help with voting. Hence the elections were open to fraud (not sure much has changed on the fraud side) so electorial was used as a brake on that type of non-sense. The electors could at that time vote for whom ever they chose but typically didn't, as they could today in certain states which do not require conformity to the election results).
Orginially the electors in the electorial college would vote for Pres. and VP based on the popular vote for each canidate, since a you didn't vote for a duo (party). So under the orginial rules the Pres elect and VP elect could come from different parties (as you can guess this caused considerable conflict). So the constitution was changed to correct this.