Re: The Electoral "College" and combinatorics

From: David C. Ullrich (ullrich_at_math.okstate.edu)
Date: 07/31/04 

Date: Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:35:03 -0500

On 31 Jul 2004 18:41:15 GMT, Bart Goddard <goddardbe@netscape.net>
wrote:

>David C. Ullrich wrote:
>
>> 'obviously bad choice' in what sense?
>
>In the sense that he's found to be a plant by the
>Dutch government or a felon.

uh, you missed the part where i pointed out that we
don't need the ec to take care of felons...

in any case, the ec has not protected us from
getting drunk drivers as president - i imagine
dui is not a felony but it certainly seems to
me to be the sort of thing that -should-
disqualify a person.

is going awol from military service a felony?
i don't know, but considering that deserters
[in a slightly different context] used to be shot
it doesn't seem impossible.

>> this is funny - i considered mentioning the possibility
>> that someone could buy off the electoral college
>> but decided you might think i was being silly.
>>
>> you think it's going to be cheaper to buy a few
>> million votes or a few hundred? or [guffaw] you
>> think that an elector is going to be immune from
>> corruption, because the party bosses wouldn't
>> pick bad guys to serve?
>
>A candidate can _legally_ buy an election of the
>popular vote, by advertizing. He can buy an elector
>only illegally.

really? what federal statute makes it illegal to try
to influence an elector's vote? and how do they enforce
it? seems like they have to prevent electors from
watching tv or reading the paper - i didn't realize
they did that.

>And here, I was just wondering which sort of problem
>"seemed more likely" (in an expected value sort of way.
>We might guard against a less likely problem if having
>that problem was more horrible than having the more
>likely problem.) To me, it seems more likely and
>more dangerous to have a legal way of buying the election
>through TV ads aimed at the majority of idiots, than
>it is to worry about an elector changing his mind for
>whatever reason.

ignoring the question of whether the way things -seem-
to -you- has any place in an argument that iirc started
with a discussion of whether something is 'logical':
what evidence do you have that the typical elector
arrives at his opinions for less idiotic reasons than
the general public?

>Bart

************************

David C. Ullrich

sorry about the inelegant formatting - typing
one-handed for a few weeks...

Relevant Pages

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