Announcing an exciting new FREE book for you to download, including an essay by PQED author/ Why? Radio host Jack Russell Weinstein. Click on the link below to get your copy!
Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College
The 2016 presidential election has sparked an unprecedented interest in the Electoral College. To expand the conversation, Picking the President: Understanding the Electoral College offers brief essays that examine the Electoral College from different disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, mathematics, political science, history, and pedagogy. Along the way, the essays address a variety of questions about the Electoral College: Why was it created? How has it changed over time? Who benefits from it? Is it just? How will future demographic patterns affect it? Should we alter or abolish the Electoral College, and if so, what should replace it? In exploring these matters, Picking the President enhances our understanding of one of America’s most high-profile, momentous issues.
This book is suitable for a general audience, regardless of academic experience or knowledge about the Electoral College. It is completely free and you don’t even have to sign up for anything. More information can be found here via the University of North Dakota Digital Press: https://thedigitalpress.org/
Table of Contents
Introduction: A Brief History of the Electoral College
Eric Burin
Section One: The Electoral College in Comparative Perspective
Ancient States and Representative Government:
Greek and Roman Models for the Electoral College
William Caraher
The Electoral College as American Aristocracy
Donald F. Johnson
America’s Rotten Electoral College System
Manisha Sinha
The South (or the North, or the West…) Will Rise Again, and Again, and Again:
Viewing the Electoral College from the Perspective of Chinese History
Andrew Meyer
Section Two: The Electoral College in Historical Perspective
What the Founders Were Thinking: Why We have the Electoral College
Andrew Shankman
Did Disenfranchisement Give the South an Electoral Advantage?
Patrick Rael
Citizenship, Civil Rights, and Electoral Politics
Cynthia Culver Prescott
Quantifying a Candidate’s Advantage in the Electoral College
Timothy Prescott
Section Three: The Future of the Electoral College
If the Electoral College Can Contradict the Popular Vote Sometimes, Why Would It Be Wrong for Them To Do It Every Single Time?
Jack Russell Weinstein
Electoral College is Fixable; Senate is Not.
Mark Trahant
Long Habits and Legitimacy
Mark Stephen Jendrysik
In Defense of the Electoral College
Allen Guelzo and James H. Hulme.
Electoral College Alternatives: Tradeoffs
Benjamin J. Kassow
Section Four: Teaching the Electoral College
“Empathy for the Unicorn”:
Teaching About the Electoral College
Brad Austin
Documents
The Constitutional Convention
U.S. Constitution: Article II
Federalist Paper No. 68
Anti-Federalist Paper No. 68
Anti-Federalist Paper No. 72
Amendment 12
Timothy Pickering, Speech in Favor of the Twelfth Amendment
James Madison to George Hay
James Madison to John Hillhouse
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