(01-29-2020 12:27 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(01-29-2020 11:58 AM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  

(01-29-2020 10:09 AM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  

(01-28-2020 02:33 PM)RiceLad15 Wrote:  It's about recognizing that other considerations besides states' sovereignty should be considered when discussing the merits of the EC, IMHO.

FIFY

You state an opinion as fact. The creators of the electoral college thought otherwise. Yours truly thinks otherwise.

Does your comment mean the only reason the founders developed the EC was to maintain states' sovereignty?

The logic went in reverse of that expressed in your question. State sovereignty was a given. It was also a given that the states, not the federal government, conduct elections. From these principles the electoral college followed.

The electoral college is not a new idea in history, and it's not unusual for republics to use an electoral college or similar system. In a parliamentary system, the prime minister is not directly elected, and those seem to work well enough, even in countries allegedly more "progressive" than the U.S.

I don't get how this response relates to the start of this thread.

You started this line of comments because you said that the founding fathers thought otherwise that other considerations, besides state sovereignty, should be considered when discussing the EC.

Two things - you're 100% correct that me stating an opinion is, in fact, my opinion (I didn't think that IMO was necessary).

Second, you avoided my question about whether the founding fathers considered anything else besides state sovereignty when adopting the EC. Because your bolded statement makes it seems like you don't think they did. And I specifically asked this because the founding fathers very clearly did think about more than state sovereignty when creating the EC, because some were very specific as to why they wanted electors selected the way they did - most notably, Hamilton (IIRC) argued for the EC as a way for the more intelligent people (the electors) to protect the country from a bad POTUS chosen by the less intelligent people (the population). Basically, to avoid the mob rule as you mentioned earlier.

I've never argued to ignore the issue of states' sovereignty, but rather, it's not the be all, end all, of the EC.