[Mitworld] New: To Keep or Not to Keep the Electoral College

[MIT World]

MIT World Newsletter

Volume 8, Number 18 | December 31, 2008

--------------------------------------------------------------

The Electoral College: Its Logical Foundations and Problems What (if Anything) Should Be Done About Improving the System of Electing a President? (Part 1)
October 17, 2008

In part one of this five-part symposium, Alex Belenky provides and overview of the Electoral College, and panelist make the case for keeping it--citing that it beats all of the alternatives.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/626

Speakers:
Judith Best
Professor of Political Science, State University of New York, Cortland

Robert Hardaway
Professor of Law, University of Denver College of Law

Alexander S. Belenky
Visiting Scholar, MIT Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals

John Fortier
Research Fellow, American Enterprise Institute

Event Host:
MIT Sloan School of Management

"It’s been estimated that if we’d had direct elections in 1960, we still wouldn’t know who won; we’d have recounts to this day."
-Robert Hardaway

--------------------------------------------------------------

What (if Anything) Should Be Done About Improving the System of Electing a President? (Part 2)
October 17, 2008

The Electoral College emphatically does not represent the best of all possible worlds, say these panelists, in clear opposition to the EC advocates who precede them in this conference.

http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/627

Speakers:
Akhil Amar
Professor of Law, Yale University Law School

Vikram Amar
Professor of Law, University of California, Davis Law School
	Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Robert Bennett
Nathaniel L. Nathanson Professor of Law, Northwestern University Law School

Alexander Keyssar
Professor of History and Social Policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Paul Schumaker
Professor of Political Science, University of Kansas

Event Host:
MIT Sloan School of Management

"We have controlled experiments in 50 states, and the direct election of (their) chief executive, and it works just fine."
-Akhil Amar

--------------------------------------------------------------

In The Pipeline:
Celebrating James Marshall and Humor in Children’s Books

Presented By:
MIT Office of Government and Community Relations

Moderator:
Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief, The Horn Book

--------------------------------------------------------------

Contact MIT World

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139-4307
mit.world at mit.edu | http://mitworld.mit.edu

You are viewing this email because you have subscribed to the MIT World Newsletter
Not interested anymore? Unsubscribe Instantly:
Write to mitworld-request at mit.edu with "unsubscribe" in the subject line
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/mitworld/attachments/20081231/ac6a0df2/attachment.htm