Yesterday during the introduction lecture for U.S. Constitutional Law we discussed the many ways that the American form government created by the Constitution is far from a direct democracy. One example given is how the President is elected, where the winner of the popular vote can still lose the election, as was the case in 2000 when Al Gore won the most votes across the country and still lost the election. The reason for this, as we discussed, is the Electoral College that actually elects the President (click here for more on the Electoral College). As I mentioned in class, in all but two states the winner of a given state gets all of that state's Electoral College votes. Thus, a person could win a big state, say Florida, by only a few hundred votes. Yet the loser of the state gets absolutely none of that state's Electoral College votes, in Florida's case 27 votes (see above map for allocation of Electoral Votes among the states). To make a long story short, another state seems to be joining Maine and Nebraska in allocating their Electoral College votes differently. Maryland has just passed legislation that would award all of its Electoral College votes (10) to the winner of the national popular election and not the person who receives the most votes cast in Maryland. This is obviously part of a movement to make the Electoral College irrelevant without having to change the U.S. Constitution.
