1996-11 Math Against Tyranny

1996-11 Will Hively Discover Magazine \voting systems\US/Electoral College http://spot.colorado.edu/~mcguire/hively.html Math Against Tyranny Math Against Tyranny "When you cast your vote this month, you're not directly electing the president – you're electing members of the electoral college. They elect the president. An archaic, unnecessary system? Mathematics shows, says one concerned American, that by giving your vote to another, you're ensuring the future of our democracy."

Hively's core argument seems to be James Madison's: "James Madison, chief architect of our nation's electoral college, wanted to protect each citizen against the most insidious tyranny that arises in democracies: the massed power of fellow citizens banded together in a dominant bloc. As Madison explained in The Federalist Papers (Number X), 'a well-constructed Union' must, above all else, 'break and control the violence of faction,' especially 'the superior force of an . . . overbearing majority.' In any democracy, a majority's power threatens minorities. It threatens their rights, their property, and sometimes their lives.'"

See US/Electoral College for further discussion of Madison's argument.

&ldquo;When you cast your vote this month, you're not directly electing the president – you're electing members of the electoral college. They elect the president. An archaic, unnecessary system? Mathematics shows, says one concerned American, that by giving your vote to another, you're ensuring the future of our democracy.&rdquo;   