Mudcatters are so damned erudite. Seriously. You folks are very knowledgeable of this subject. (Well---most of yez:)Professionally, I am a 25-year Elections Officer for the State of Connecticut; and I am impressed. Wish our typical voters---Hell, our typical *candidates*---were as well-informed as youse guys.

Here are three informational, nonpartisan links; plus a 4th one thrown in so you can see nice pictures of my boss & my oul' office building :).

Federal Elections Commission -- lots of good info.

Brief History of Electoral College -- within the above FEC site. Very good essay, from a pro-Electoral-College viewpoint (which I share -- see further below).

Home Page of the Electoral College! More good stuff.

CT Secretary of the State Most important fact: 2nd floor, 2nd window from corner: Meee. :) Click "Elections Services Division" or "2002 Election Information" for CT election data.

Re Primaries: they are indeed often polarizing. The leftward/rightward drift of the Dems & Repubs respectively has coincided with the increasing frequency of primaries in recent decades. Primary voters --- regardless of eligibility provisions which vary state-by-state as noted above, and concerning which *party rules* can sometimes supersede state laws per a 1986 CT case in the U.S. Supreme Court (we lost, y'see)---primary voters, as I say, tend to be hardcore party activists & loyalists: the "Base". (No I don't mean al Qaeda.)(Well. Not yet anyway.) The recent Georgia Congressional primaries cited above contradicted this trend; but that was because of the unusually-high level of crossover voting. // In CT we have an ongoing Fedreral court battle (which we're also gonna lose) over *candidate* eligibility for primaries, i.e., how challengers qualify. We're rather restrictive, you see. (Mwaa-ha-haaa...) It's quite complicated; but if anybody's interested in more on that (???), post or PM me. (But fair warning: you'll get me going....this post is brief, for me...)

Re Electoral College: an Electoral College "inversion"---the popular-vote loser being elected President---has happened 3 times, 1876, 1888, and 2000. Almost all of the time, the Electoral vote *magnifies* the popular winner's popular percentage margin. 1876 was questionable: Reconstruction-related local shenanigans, party-line vote on the special commission appointed to decide which competing slates to certify, etc. 1888 was pure: it just happened. 2000: sorry folks, but what happened in Florida could have happened anywhere. Florida was just ill-fated. The margin of victory there was less than the margin for error, which exists everywhere and always will, regardless of the voting system, training, ballot design, computerization, etc. (*Internet* voting: fuggedabout it.)Bulletin: *no final official tally, of a large quantity of votes, is ever **exactly, precisely correct**, anywhere, anytime.* If you "peel the skin" off any large-scale election, you will find, essentially: Florida. The 2000 problem was this: it was just *too close*.

Which is why I feel the Electoral College saved the Republic in 2000. I am no Dubya-ite, believe me. I'm a good Dimmycrat. But we have to have a President declared elected within *some* kind of a reasonable time-frame. Now, (1) Bush didn't steal Florida. Massive detailed news-media & other studies have shown that by almost any statewide recounting methodology, Bush won the state. The Gore-wins scenarios are a big stretch. (Yes, if the Palm Beach County 3% butterfly-ballot screwups had effectuated their intent, then Al would have triumphed; but you just can't judge voter intent based on past voting patterns and probabilities when the ballot itself is clear.)(2) If that election had been decided by national popular vote, *we could still be recounting today*. Every single precinct in the country would have become Miami/Dade, folks. Over 100 million ballots being held up to that overhead light, figuratively speaking of course. Nightmare.

Take this comfort: it's not gonna be that close again for a long time. The Electoral College will revert to its usual exaggeration of the popular winner's margin. Maybe the Big Asteroid will hit before the next Inversion, rendering the matter Moot. (Of course here in CT we won't shut down the polls fer nothin'! Nosirree.)