To me, the case for getting rid of the electoral college is so straightforward as to hardly need articulating. Arguments about a straight first-past-the-post popular vote versus some other kinds of systems involving runoffs are things where reasonable people can disagree, but the electoral college is just an absurd anachronism rooted in an 18th century understanding of the nature of the country that hasn't been applicable for a long, long, long time. But if you want a really exhaustive account of the harm done, check out FairVote's report "Presidential Elections Inequality: The Electoral College in the 21st Century".
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18 Jul 2008 11:55 am
Comments (76)
Considering that the Republican Party is in a death spiral and every demographic trend in the U.S. is helping the Democrats, why the big push on the Electoral College. Are progressive activist really "fighting the last war?"
In the future, the Democratic Primary will be the real election for president and will end at some arbitrary time and be much more affect by specific election rules than the general election. If you really want to worry about equal representation and minority voting rights, then the Democratic Party should take away the power of Iowa and New Hampshire in the primary election progress instead of worry about such a moot point as the electoral college. The Democratic Party should also think about moving the time of the election instead of facing the prospect of an 11 month transition period in 2016.
Matt,
The funny thing is that the electoral system enumerated in the Constitution never even worked the way it was intended. The winner gets to be President, and the runner up gets to be Vice-President. After the debacle with Jefferson and Adams that rule was hastily amended, but the rest of the system was never fixed. The Electoral College never worked, and should be fixed. Its called good governance people.
Yep it sucks, but it is also shielded from reform by the structure of the Senate, which in turn is shielded from reform by the Constitution itself.
So, get used to it.
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
Remember that the winner-take-all system is not in the Constitution ... it developed early in a fight for influence between Virginia and New York.
The original system involved electing electors in line with the House and Senate seats that they represent, but of course that opens the Electoral College to gerrymandering ... proportional distribution by state can't be gerrymandered.
Call me anachronistic - but I think that there is a value to recognizing and keeping "states" (as in these "United States") as separate entities. I think abolishing the EC would go a long way to erasing those distinctions - and it shouldn't be done for political advantage or as a fix for what some people choose to chategorically dismiss as "an absurd anachronism" without a wholescale rethinking of what it means to be "states" vis-a-vis the federal government. The arguments of small states vs the big states (and vs the federal government) that were applicable in 1787 and necessetated the "Connecticut compromise" of which the EC is an outgrowth are as vaid today as they were 225 years ago. We are a "republic" - not a "democracy" and shifting the Presidential vote away from the EC will have ramifications.
Considering that the Republican Party is in a death spiral and every demographic trend in the U.S. is helping the Democrats, why the big push on the Electoral College. Are progressive activist really "fighting the last war?"
Sarcasm, I hope? Some of us, believe it or not, and even though we do care about electing Democrats, are also interested in eliminating an antiquated undemocratic relic for its own sake.
Also, anyone who honestly thinks the Republican Party will go extinct is seriously underestimating the power of the Dark Side.
The Electoral College preserves the appeal of states and regions, and like it or not, there are still regional interests because different parts of the country have different economic concerns. Direct popular voting would blur those concerns to a significant degree -- a candidate could decide to simply bypass concerns about aging transportation and industrial infrastructure in the Greak Lakes region, for instance, or ignore the issues like immigration or heating oil prices or agricultural subsidies which have significant impacts in specific regions but are not as important to other parts of the country.
This does not mean that I necessarily think it's good that politicians have to pander to these local concerns. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But if we abolish the Electoral College, it will become harder for those sorts of more regional concerns to get everyone's attention. Why should we care? Because we are a single nation. I live in California but I care aobut the government dropping the ball in New Orleans, and so should you even if you don't live in Louisiana.
The problems with the electoral college and the total breakdown in willingness of Congress to oversee the executive branch could both be easily fixed by switching to a parliamentary system where the President/Prime Minister would be selected by Congress and would lose his position if his party lost control.
We are a "republic" - not a "democracy" and shifting the Presidential vote away from the EC will have ramifications.
Yeah--no more repeats of 2000. What a shame.
The Electoral College preserves the appeal of states and regions, and like it or not, there are still regional interests because different parts of the country have different economic concerns. Direct popular voting would blur those concerns to a significant degree -- a candidate could decide to simply bypass concerns about aging transportation and industrial infrastructure in the Greak Lakes region, for instance, or ignore the issues like immigration or heating oil prices or agricultural subsidies which have significant impacts in specific regions but are not as important to other parts of the country.
This does not mean that I necessarily think it's good that politicians have to pander to these local concerns. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. But if we abolish the Electoral College, it will become harder for those sorts of more regional concerns to get everyone's attention. Why should we care? Because we are a single nation. I live in California but I care aobut the government dropping the ball in New Orleans, and so should you even if you don't live in Louisiana.
"The Electoral College preserves the appeal of states and regions"
Not really. Republican presidential races have little incentive to pay attention to New England or California or New York in the general election. It's all swing states and base states. Vice versa with Democrats and the South -- in the general, the South gets written off as a region. The electoral college has huge downsides that way.
At least with the popular vote it represents PEOPLE not LAND.
"The Electoral College preserves the appeal of states and regions"
Not really. Republican presidential races have little incentive to pay attention to New England or California or New York in the general election. It's all swing states and base states. Vice versa with Democrats and the South -- in the general, the South gets written off as a region. The electoral college has huge downsides that way.
At least with the popular vote it represents PEOPLE not LAND.
We need to go one step further: national voter registration. Voter suppression is bullshit.
"The Electoral College preserves the appeal of states and regions"
Not really. Republican presidential races have little incentive to pay attention to New England or California or New York in the general election. It's all swing states and base states. Vice versa with Democrats and the South -- in the general, the South gets written off as a region. The electoral college has huge downsides that way.
At least with the popular vote it represents PEOPLE not LAND.
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
Actually, that's not quite true. California has 55 electoral votes for a population of 36,458,000, which is one vote per 662,873 people. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes for a population of 515,000 people, which is one vote per 171,667 people.
So a vote in WY counts almost 4X more than one in CA. That's just wrong.
As I noted elsewhere, the Electoral College does not uniformly preserve the importance of states and regions. Rather, it elevates the importance of a minority of states and regions, and diminishes the important of the rest.
And as I also noted elsewhere, the recent Democratic Primary was a great illustration of why these claims about a direct system are incorrect. Obama identified marginal voters, and thus potential additional delegates, in every contest, and therefore campaigned actively in almost every state and region (except for a few on Super Tuesday, when he was resource constrained). It was actually the Clinton Campaign that seemed to take more of an Electoral College approach, and they campaigned hard in less, not more, states and regions.
So this is really all a very misguided argument for the status quo, because it actually has things exactly backwards.
A last note to BruceMcF:
It is true that in the limit, proportional allocation of electors would be identical to a direct vote. I'd just note two wrinkles. First, if the number of electors in enough states is small enough, it can cause distortions due to threshhold effects. Second, currently the allocation of electors is not proportional to population. So even if proportional allocation was uniformly adopted, it would not quite remove all the problems of the status quo.
And, of course, the minority of states that currently enjoy disproportionate influence under the winner-takes-all approach are unlikely to relinquish that advantage easily.
So what if some states receive more "attention" than others? If those states want presidential candidates to come courting, they can start voting for the other party. Presumably if they are "safe" states, then the citizens are by and large happy not getting a lot of attention. Or, the state legislature can switch to a district-based apportionment.
A nationwide popular vote would benefit Democrats disproportionately, because their dollars would be much more efficiently spent in urban areas, while Republicans would on the margin have to spread their dollars out over wider, rural areas. In addition, large cities will receive massive amounts of attention, rural states and areas, less so. Will Democrats whine about this for the next 225 years? Doubtful.
Far from being a relic, the Electoral College is one of the most glorious democratic institutions in the constitution, striking a balance between the populace and states qua states, and prevents a widely fractured body politic. Like it or hate it, it's here to stay.
Wow! Yes our founding fathers were so dumb, you would almost think the didn't understand majority rule, and all the benefits we would get from such tyranny.
The electoral college is ingenious from a practical and mathematical perspective.
Take the 2000 election. The vote was close in one state, and the issues were confined to one state, the recount was done in one state, the lawyers argued in one state.
Imagine a national election which was close enough for an automatic recount, or one which was challenged. Imagine a national manual recount.
Imagine that a hurricane tears through the South the day before the election, displacing half the population in a few large states. Although the other half can vote with minimum effect on the demographics of the vote, or the state outcome, it could have a drastic effect on the national popular vote totals.
Another practical advantage is what happens if a candidate dies in some critical window, even after being elected. The popular vote will fairly screw everyone. But the electoral college can adjust to this potential problem.
The popular national vote is as brain dead as cumulative voting, which would make recounts into an everyday reality for every election.
Our vote for president may not be democratic, but it is representative.
If you want to pick on something, maybe national parties.
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
You'd think so, maybe, but you'd be wrong. Proportional distribution hits Democrats worse than winner take all, because of rounding errors -- the small, 3-vote states remain winner-take-all because there's only one House vote to be "divided," while suddenly NY and CA are split half-and-half.
Bush winners bigger, with regard to electoral votes, in 2000 in a proportional system than in a winner take all system.
To get proportional voting to function remotely as desired you'd need (a) get rid of the two Senate votes, or else divide the state with regard to the EC differently than with regard to the House; and (b) have many more electoral votes than we have currently, so rounding errors are eliminated.
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
You'd think so, maybe, but you'd be wrong. Proportional distribution hits Democrats worse than winner take all, because of rounding errors -- the small, 3- and 4-vote states remain winner-take-all because there's only one House vote to be "divided," while suddenly NY and CA are split half-and-half.
Bush winners bigger, with regard to electoral votes, in 2000 in a proportional system than in a winner take all system.
To get proportional voting to function remotely as desired you'd need (a) get rid of the two Senate votes, or else divide the state with regard to the EC differently than with regard to the House; and (b) have many more electoral votes than we have currently, so rounding errors are eliminated.
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
You'd think so, maybe, but you'd be wrong. Proportional distribution hits Democrats worse than winner take all, because of rounding errors -- the small, 3- and 4-vote states remain winner-take-all because there's the lone House vote(s) can't be "divided," while suddenly NY and CA are split half-and-half.
Bush winners bigger, with regard to electoral votes, in 2000 in a proportional system than in a winner take all system.
To get proportional voting to function remotely as desired you'd need (a) get rid of the two Senate votes, or else divide the state with regard to the EC differently than with regard to the House; and (b) have many more electoral votes than we have currently, so rounding errors are eliminated.
The Electoral College is intended to make candidates not forget about low population areas like "fly-over" country. What is best for California might not be what's best for Wyoming, so Wyoming still gets a say. We are the United States. Seperate states united under one federal system. If the outcome for two candidates means that one candidate receives more of the popular vote, and the other receives more of the electoral vote, it seems to me the American people are pretty evenly split on who they want for President that even a coin-flip would be fine. I know many of you are passionate in your stance because of the actual people involved, but realize that a popular vote system would mean that canidates would only have to visit 10 or 12 of the most populated cities in order to win; and trust me when I say that none of those cities are anywhere near Utah, Wyoming, or Hawaii.
Brad,
Have you checked on ad rates in higher-population media markets? Turns out they are higher as well--the basic rule in advertising is you pay proportionate to your expected views, and there is no simple way around this rule. Now it is possible that for technological reasons, it would end up being slighter cheaper to reach more voters in denser areas. But in the real world there are so many buildout requirements and other regulations favoring media access for rural people, that is a trivial concern.
Moreover, all this again ignores the real issue in politics, which is getting your message to as many MARGINAL voters as possible. And there is no obvious reason why Democrats would have more marginal voters in cities than Republicans, or less in rural areas.
"So a vote in WY counts almost 4X more than one in CA. That's just wrong."
Why?
It's easier to argue that having all votes count equally is wrong. The entire constitutional system is designed to prevent more populous states from completely running over the interests of smaller states. Equal state representation in the Senate and the electoral college are two manifestations of that principle.
I've noticed that liberals love to use Wyoming as an example of something that's uniquely unfair or wrong, as if it's worthless. Why not Delaware, or DC? They also have 3 electoral votes and punch above their weight. Granted, Wyoming benefits the most, but even blue states get disproportionate representation in the electoral college.
Mister Stillwater, small population states already have a balance of representation. It's called the Senate. Giving them an even more disproportionate amount of power is hardly a fair solution to the majority of the population. Why do you think the country has such wretched agricultural policy to go along with it's wretched mass transit system?
As to "winner take all" vs. proportional, I would leave that up to the individual states. They already have power over their primaries, and a fair amount of leeway in how their elections are run.
"Have you checked on ad rates in higher-population media markets?"
It's not just ad buys. It's getting out the vote, voter registration drives, ability to get to the polls, etc. All of this is much more efficient in urban areas.
"And there is no obvious reason why Democrats would have more marginal voters in cities than Republicans, or less in rural areas."
There's not? Urban voters overwhelmingly vote Democrat. Your marginal voter is likely to vote Democrat as well.
"the Electoral College is one of the most glorious democratic institutions in the constitution"
Not even close. You are delusion if you think the electorl college is better than a tripartide system of checks and balances between President, Congress, and the Supreme Court. That was the glory of the Constitution. The EC failed by the 3rd election.
"Imagine a national election which was close enough for an automatic recount, or one which was challenged. Imagine a national manual recount."
Why? If we did away with the EC then Gore won and there is no Florida recount.
"Imagine that a hurricane tears through the South the day before the election, displacing half the population in a few large states. Although the other half can vote with minimum effect on the demographics of the vote, or the state outcome, it could have a drastic effect on the national popular vote totals."
No, you have it backwards. With the EC displacing populace will hugely affect the outcome. With a national vote, not so much.
"The popular national vote is as brain dead as cumulative voting, which would make recounts into an everyday reality for every election."
Another farcical statement. Popular vote is used to elect Senators. How many Senate elections are subject to recount? That's right, none. Getting rid of the EC will eliminate recounts, not increase them.
Again, small states collectively aren't all beneficiaries of the status quo. Heck, when was the last time Wyoming was in fact given serious attention in a Presidential contest? That should tell you there is something wrong with this argument. And the claims about direct voting allowing candidates to concentrate in just big states is again just wrong, because it fails to take account for the fact that it is marginal voters that actually matter, and they are scattered across the country as one would expect.
No, it is just a minority of states, some small and some big, that benefit from the status quo. And I have to say it frustrates me that those few states have apparently gotten so many other people to believe that somehow small states in general are actually benefiting from the status quo. Indeed, I honestly think the politicians in places like Ohio and Florida are likely laughing in private at the rubes in Wyoming who bought this nonsense.
The Electoral College is intended to make candidates not forget about low population areas like "fly-over" country. What is best for California might not be what's best for Wyoming, so Wyoming still gets a say.
If what's best for California isn't what's best for Wyoming, then we should probably do what's best for California since that will benefit a lot more people. What's the moral principle whereby the interests of people from Wyoming should be counted more heavily?
If the outcome for two candidates means that one candidate receives more of the popular vote, and the other receives more of the electoral vote, it seems to me the American people are pretty evenly split on who they want for President
This is self-contradicting. If one candidate receives more of the popular vote, then the American people aren't evenly split. They might be nearly evenly split -- that's true most years -- but one candidate got more votes. I don't think the difference between getting more votes and getting fewer votes than the other guy is insignificant.
"The popular national vote is as brain dead as cumulative voting, which would make recounts into an everyday reality for every election."
Brad, this of course begs the question, with technology what it is today, why do we have ANY recounts? Maybe, just maybe, the problem is that we have not put the money into reliable and verifiable voting systems, ya' think?
What happens with NPV if there is no majority holder? Such as with a third party candidate
who receives 5% of the vote?
"Giving them an even more disproportionate amount of power is hardly a fair solution to the majority of the population."
Mssrs. Franklin, Morris (both of them), Washington, Madison, Sherman, Hamilton, et al. would like to express their disagreement with you.
This is a good point for me to add that there are some states that shouldn't exist and never should have existed.
There's no reason why Wyoming should exist as a distinct political entity with its own representation in Washington, DC. We defend their disproportionate political pull because of the principle that they are a unitary state government that is allowed all of the rights and privileges thereof, regardless of how small their population is. But why do they exist as a separate political entity with representation in Washington? Why do we need two Dakotas?
"Heck, when was the last time Wyoming was in fact given serious attention in a Presidential contest?"
Again, who cares? Wyoming and every other "safe" state obviously believes that its interests are being adequately represented. Otherwise it would start voting the other way. Why do they need extra attention? It's like your wife complaining that you know longer court her the same as you did when you first met.
"Brad, this of course begs the question, with technology what it is today, why do we have ANY recounts? Maybe, just maybe, the problem is that we have not put the money into reliable and verifiable voting systems, ya' think?"
I didn't make the statement you are responding to, but I'll just say that reliability of recounts and voting is a separate issue altogether than apportionment of votes. The danger in an evenly split electorate is the necessity of recounting 100 million votes. I don't think it's a determining factor, but it's something to consider.
"To me, the case for getting rid of the electoral college is so straightforward as to hardly need articulating."
this is the kind of in-depth analysis we are going to miss here. CAP can't be paying you enough for your insight
Brad,
First, any component of campaign activity done through telecommunications or the mail is subject to the same analysis about buildout requirements, universal service regulations and subsidies, and so on. The only thing that really can't be done in rural areas is literally going door to door, and I highly doubt the electoral college alone is enough to convince campaigns to actually go door to door in rural areas--instead they are in fact using telecommunications and the mail to reach those people already.
Second, I'm not sure you understand the concept of a marginal voter. A marginal voter is one that could potentially vote for either you or your opponent. Those are the people you want to target with things like ad campaigns, as opposed to people who are already likely to vote for you anyway. And for that reason, you can't necessarily look to where people are already likely to vote for you to find your marginal voters. Indeed, the whole idea is to look for places where both sides might have appeal.
Moving from the electoral college to direct voting doesn't change that pursuit of the marginal voter. What it does do, however, is make ALL marginal voters important, not just marginal voters in close states (which again can be big or small). So that change would be to the advantage of many rural areas, small states, and so on ... all those people who currently are largely ignored because they happen not to live in a close state.
Brad,
It is obviously a serious defect in your electoral system if the only way for the voters in Wyoming and other non-swing states to have their due influence on Presidential elections is for them to vote in any other way than voting for who they think should be President. That is basically telling them the only way their vote can count is if they don't vote the way they want to vote, which makes the act of voting absurd.
Again, all that is happening here is that a minority of states (both big and small, more Democratic and more Republican) who happened to be regular swing states are blocking reform, to the detriment of all other states (both big and small, more Democratic and Republican). And the idea that the correct solution to this problem is just for all states to become swing states regardless of the actual preferences of their voters is pretty silly.
DTM is right. Abolition of the Electoral College is not going to happen. As the U.S. population continues to cluster in big-state metro areas, small and rural states will become even more possessive of their disproportionate voting strength.
Ok. I understood marginal voter to mean on the fence whether to vote or not. It seems likely that these would vote in proportion to the overall population, and could be reached more efficiently by GOTV drives in major cities. Even still, the marginal voter is not paramount in national elections. Any argument for eliminating the electoral college should start, it seems to me, by explaining why it's necessary to upset the balance between the states, the national government and the people that the electoral college represents. One man, one vote! is not an argument. Even given that a "minority" president is a "wrong" result, which I don't concede, it has happened a grand total of 4 times in US history, and one of those was by fraud. The EC provides numerous benefits to the political system that can't easily be overlooked.
"It's easier to argue that having all votes count equally is wrong. The entire constitutional system is designed to prevent more populous states from completely running over the interests of smaller states. Equal state representation in the Senate and the electoral college are two manifestations of that principle."
Yes, both of these are awful, anachronistic ideas. They were designed for a federation more along the lines of the EU, where each state was a quasi-sovereign entity that deserved to have its rights represented as a unit. That has long since ceased to be the case in any meaningful sense.
"I've noticed that liberals love to use Wyoming as an example of something that's uniquely unfair or wrong, as if it's worthless. Why not Delaware, or DC?"
Wyoming is used as an example because Wyoming has the lowest population-- less, even, than the city of Washington, DC. Delaware, your other example, has 65% more people than Wyoming. The Electoral College obfuscates this point.
allbetsareoff,
To clarify my views, the minority coalition of states with an interest in blocking Presidential Election reform isn't just small and rural states, nor does it include all or even most such states. Again, states like Ohio and Florida have just as much stake in blocking reform as any small state, and states like Wyoming and Vermont have just as much stake in pursuing reform.
So it is actually a misleadingly favorable framing for these reform-blocking states to cast this as a small states versus big states issue. In fact it is a swing states versus every other state issue, but it appears the tactic of waving the bogeymen of California and New York around is convincing enough people in small states to side against their natural interests and with Ohio and Florida instead.
It's not so much based on 18th-century political standards as 18th-century realpolick compromises. The big states wanted proportional representation, the small states wanted one-state-one-vote, so we wound up with a compromise system that wasn't really anyone's first choice.
As for the rationale behind giving people in rural areas disproportionate influence, what's the rationale for giving people in the largish urban areas of small states (see, e.g., Wilmington, Salt Lake City, Vegas) lots of influence, while giving people in the geographically enormous rural areas of New York, Texas, and California very little influence? Why should substantial urban areas receive disproportionately large or small amounts of influence depending on whether they happen to be located in small states or big states?
"The Electoral College is intended to make candidates not forget about low population areas like "fly-over" country."
That was not its intended purpose. It was a bribe offered to smaller states to keep them in the Union.
But that's not it's only effect, either: the Electoral College encourages GOP campaigns write off CA, NY, IL and all of New England; and for Democrats to write off nine states in the South, including Texas. That is definitely a worse outcome.
The Electoral College has got to go.
"The Electoral College is intended to make candidates not forget about low population areas like "fly-over" country."
That was not its intended purpose. It was a bribe offered to smaller states to keep them in the Union.
But that's not it's only effect, either: the Electoral College encourages GOP campaigns write off CA, NY, IL and all of New England; and for Democrats to write off nine states in the South, including Texas. That is definitely a worse outcome.
The Electoral College has got to go.
"The Electoral College is intended to make candidates not forget about low population areas like "fly-over" country."
That was not its intended purpose. It was a bribe offered to smaller states to keep them in the Union.
But that's not it's only effect, either: the Electoral College encourages GOP campaigns write off CA, NY, IL and all of New England; and for Democrats to write off nine states in the South, including Texas. That is definitely a worse outcome.
The Electoral College has got to go.
What happens if New England gets hit by a big blizzard on Election Day and few people can get to the polls. Under the Electoral College, their influence remains. Under national popular vote? Sorry, you're outta luck.
It's easy to think of similar events that could skew the turnout in a state one way or the other... big local elections, sporting events, wildfires, etc. The electoral college evens that all out.
Also, there's the essential structural nature of the Republic. The Electoral College, like much of the constitution, is based on the principle of balancing the influence of the majority and the minorities. NPV throws that all out of whack.
With NPV, someone could easily become President by appealing to a very narrow segment of the population... Southern voters only, urban voters only, etc. The EC requires a fairly broad-based appeal.
But let's face it: what's really going on here isn't about principle, it's about raw politics. If the Electoral College benefited the Democrats, conservatives would start screaming about its "unfairness," while liberals would suddenly find the (bad) arguments about riding roughshod over small states exceedingly persuasive.
With NPV, someone could easily become President by appealing to a very narrow segment of the population.
That's exactly what happens now: people become president by making specific pitches to swing voters in a few swing states.
"It's easier to argue that having all votes count equally is wrong. The entire constitutional system is designed to prevent more populous states from completely running over the interests of smaller states. Equal state representation in the Senate and the electoral college are two manifestations of that principle."
Yes, both of these are awful, anachronistic ideas. They were designed for a federation more along the lines of the EU, where each state was a quasi-sovereign entity that deserved to have its rights represented as a unit. That has long since ceased to be the case in any meaningful sense.
"I've noticed that liberals love to use Wyoming as an example of something that's uniquely unfair or wrong, as if it's worthless. Why not Delaware, or DC?"
Wyoming is used as an example not because of some blue-state anti-Wyoming bias, but because Wyoming has the lowest population. That includes the city of Washington, DC. Delaware, your other example, has 65% more people than Wyoming. Montana, with the same 3 electoral votes, has almost twice as many people as Wyoming. The Electoral College obfuscates this point.
I would note, also, that freezing the House size at 435 has exacerbated this problem. As it is now, the +2 senatorial EC votes a state gets is equal to about 1.4 million people (the number in two congressional districts). When the framers set it out, that number was equal to about 60,000.
Brad,
Of course the marginal voter is paramount in national elections. The marginal voter is paramount in all winner-takes-all elections.
And again, this is the basic argument for abolishing the status quo: the current system gives undue influence to voters in states that happen to be close, and unduly diminishes the influence of all other voters.
And once again, it simply is not correct that the status quo is preserving a certain relationship between the states IN GENERAL and the national government. Rather, it is elevating the importance of a minority of states, but reducing the importance of all other states. So, its function is to reallocate power among states, not to change the balance of power between states and the national government.
And finally, it is again not even small states collectively that benefit. It is just swing states, both big and small.
So, I would turn it around. Understanding now what the electoral college actually does, explain to me the justification for voters in states with rough parity between the two parties having much more influence on Presidential elections than voters in other states? Why should the voters of Iowa matter much more than the voters of Kansas? Why should the voters of Florida matter much more than the voters of Georgia? What justifiable political function is that supposed to be serving (other than, I might note, preserving the power of national parties)? Because that is what the status quo in truth does.
Mssrs. Franklin, Morris (both of them), Washington, Madison, Sherman, Hamilton, et al. would like to express their disagreement with you.
That's fine. I disagree with how the whole slavery thing was handled too. It took a long time to fix that one.
This is my pet issue, exacerbated no doubt by the Gore/Bush fiasco in 2000. I'm glad MY gave it some attention; I wish Obama and McCain would start talking about it. Both of them have supported it in the past. Obama voted (maybe sponsored?) a bill in the Illinois state senate, and McCain has made radio spots for similiar initiatives in Alaska.
A nationwide popular vote would benefit Democrats disproportionately, because their dollars would be much more efficiently spent in urban areas, while Republicans would on the margin have to spread their dollars out over wider, rural areas. In addition, large cities will receive massive amounts of attention, rural states and areas, less so.
Actually, over a period of time (20 years?), the two party system would be eliminated. We'd have governing coalitions (libertarians working with Democrats on issues like FISA; libertarians working with Republicans on issues like health care reform), and truly moderate candidates would be more likely to win rather than candidates from extreme ends of the spectrum putting up a fascade for 15 months.
That's the national-level impact, and national politics drive a large part of party platforms. You'd get candidates that more accurately reflect the general voter.
This is of course if an instant run-off system was used.
"It is obviously a serious defect in your electoral system if the only way for the voters in Wyoming and other non-swing states to have their due influence on Presidential elections"
But they have their due influence! That's what you're complaining about! Relative attention, media buys, candidate visits, is not influence. Voting power is influence.
"Again, all that is happening here is that a minority of states ... are blocking reform... And the idea that the correct solution to this problem is just for all states to become swing states regardless of the actual preferences of their voters is pretty silly."
Indeed it is silly, but I didn't say that. You misread my argument, which is my fault. Even assuming that there's a "problem", I'm saying that the amount of relative "attention" is irrelevant to it. Safe states like Wyoming are voting reliably because they are happy with the party they are reliably voting for, and don't need extra attention! To the extent they are not happy, they will start voting another way, at which point they will get more attention. Now, if you believe that majority rules is absolutely paramount, and must be achieved at all costs, then yes, this is a problem. But that's not the system we live under, nor should it be. On the margin even the House is over-representative of small states with a single representative. *strawman alert* Should we do away with that too? How about we just abolish the House and Senate, vote for a President, and have internet voting for all proposed laws?
And it's not swing states "blocking" reform, it's the many states who favor the electoral college. Why can a constitutional amendment rarely pass even the House or Senate, if only a few swing states are blocking it? During the most recent attempt at reform during the 70s, of over 200 attempted reforms, I believe a proposed amendment passed the House, but came nowhere close in the Senate.
"Wyoming is used as an example because Wyoming has the lowest population-- less, even, than the city of Washington, DC. Delaware, your other example, has 65% more people than Wyoming."
I'm aware. As I stated. It just really seems to rub liberals raw that it's Wyoming that benefits the most. Of the 8 states (and DC) that have 3 electoral votes, 3 are blue. If you expand the list to the 13 states and DC that have 3 or 4 electoral votes, 7 are blue. It's not something that uniquely benefits Republicans, which is sort of what constantly mentioning Wyoming seems designed to imply.
Unfortunately I have to bug out of this debate. Have work to do.
Disproportionate representation in the Electoral College disadvantages Democrats this year, but not massively. Among states (plus DC) with 7 or fewer electoral votes, current polling shows this split between Obama and McCain:
Obama: Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont (42 EVs)
McCain: Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming (57 EVs)
Tossup: Nevada (5 EVs)
Senate representation from those small states is roughly a wash. The partisan split is now 24 R, 22 D (including Saunders and Lieberman). Current polling has Shaheen beating Sununu in New Hampshire and Udall beating Pierce in New Mexico. If the Dems take those seats and Lieberman switches caucuses, the breakdown in January would be 23 D (including Saunders), 23 R (including Lieberman).
Brad,
But that is just the point: a vote which has no practical chance of affecting the electoral results has no real power. The lack of campaigning in these states is a symptom, but the disease is precisely that problem.
And that is why your prescription for these states getting real voting power if they aren't happy with the status quo is really in fact silly. Again, to get real voting power in the current system, a state has to turn itself into a swing state. So, that really does mean to have their votes count, they can't vote the way they want. And again, the lack of campaigning is a symptom. The actual problem is a system in which only the close states count.
"And it's not swing states 'blocking' reform, it's the many states who favor the electoral college. Why can a constitutional amendment rarely pass even the House or Senate, if only a few swing states are blocking it?"
In 1969, the Bayh-Cellar Amendment passed the House 339-70. The NYT reported 30 states in favor, 6 leaning against, 8 strongly opposed, with 6 yet to state a preference. In the Senate the Amendment was filibustered. The final vote for cloture was 53-34. So, that was very much a minority of states using the structure of the Senate to block a reform a majority of states wanted.
One man, one vote is not an argument!
No, but it is an important value that is among the premises of the argument for electing the President by national popular vote.
If the electoral college doesn't have major partisan effects (and I'm glad it doesn't, if that's true), then that just underscores the point that partisanship is actually not the underlying motivation for NPV advocates.
The underlying motivations are things like the belief that all votes should count equally, and the desire for presidential campaigns to be less focused on a small number of swing states.
if you believe that majority rules is absolutely paramount, and must be achieved at all costs...
I wouldn't say "at all costs." There are other important values, e.g., certain inalienable human rights. But I don't think there are any costs of electing the president by national popular vote that I would consider significant.
Allbetsareoff - surely the way to do this is to mesure total number of states, rather than looking just at small states. For instance, in 2000, George Bush won 30 states and Gore won 20 states and DC. That gave Bush 18 extra electoral votes, well more than his margin of victory in the electoral college. If not for the extra two vote bump, Gore would have won relatively comfortably, 224 to 211.
In 2004 it didn't influence the result, but it did skew it towards Bush. Bush won 31 states, and Kerry won 19 and DC. This time, if you remove these "winning state bonuses", it would have been Bush 224, Kerry 211 - a much closer race than we actually got. Kerry could have won by focusing attention on his very close losses in Iowa and New Mexico, rather than the somewhat less close Ohio.
But the 2000 case really shows how ridiculous this is. Basically, Bush won the presidency entirely because he won more states than Gore.
But the 2000 case really shows how ridiculous this is. Basically, Bush won the presidency entirely because he won more states than Gore.
It's more ridiculous than that. The winner depends strongly on the size of the electoral college, which varies with the size of the House (last changed in 1941) and the size of the Senate (last changed in 1959.) If the electoral college had 540 members instead of 538 in 2000, Gore would've won. Between 491 and 597 members, the 2000 election results oscillate between Bush and Gore. Beyond 597, Gore wins consistently except for a tie at 655. Bush wins consistently for any size below 491.
See http://www.thirty-thousand.org/pages/Neubauer-Zeitlin.htm for a complete analysis.
what everyone seems to forget is that 'swing states' *change* every decade or so. California was a swing state during the Bush I elections. Virginia was not one until 5 minutes ago. And swing states are present in every region of the country:
New England - NH
Mid Atlantic - PA, VA*
South - FL, LA, VA*
Mid West - OH, WI, IA**
Mountain West - CO, NM
West - NV, OR
* VA is either a newly emerging swing state in the south, or is becoming a swing state because it is essentially moving to the mid-atlantic
** you could probably split up the mid west into great lakes and upper Mississippi - which still has swing states in each, and for that matter add MN and WI.
In any case, the electoral college does provide a representative sample of the US population. And it represents it at the muddled middle, in the states where the issues de jour are most in flux (because these are places where politics is closely contented and thus issues are unresolved open questions.)
Direct popular voting would blur those concerns to a significant degree -- a candidate could decide to simply bypass concerns about aging transportation and industrial infrastructure in the Greak Lakes region, for instance...
I don't see how this logically follows. If, say, 18,000,000 likely voters live in the Great Lakes region, a presidential candidate is still going to have to address their concerns in a direct popular vote contest unless he's inclined to write off the Great Lakes region. I mean, eighteen million votes is still eighteen million votes. There may be strong reasons to oppose changing the status quo, but the "regional concerns won't get addressed" argument doesn't seem to be one of them.
No one has adequately addressed the hurricane/blizzard/bomb hypothetical. A disaster could disenfranchise a huge number of people under a national popular vote system. The EC insulates against that.
The best solution, as I see it, is an electoral college with proportional awarding of electors. The number of electors per state should represent the states' populations (unless someone can come up with a good reason to give smaller states disproportionate influence). Furthermore, each state should have enough electors to avoid granularity problems -- the winner of 51% in Wyoming or Delaware should not be awarded 2/3 delegates.
Can anyone think of a serious critique of this plan that goes beyond appeals to tradition or partisan preferences?
So, that was very much a minority of states using the structure of the Senate to block a reform a majority of states wanted.
Which is, essentially, how the framers of the Constitution intended for it to work.
That's exactly what happens now: people become president by making specific pitches to swing voters in a few swing states.
Yeah, those cablenews forums with an audience of 'undecided' (aka dumb) voters in Dayton weren't put together for shits and giggles.
If we're looking at the historical model, the presumption was that regionalism and factionalism would produce a larger slate of candidates, none with 50%+1 EVs, and that the result would go to the House delegations. How that fits NPV, I'm unsure.
Ethel-To-Tilly says:
"We are a "republic" - not a "democracy...."
I was taught that the United States is a democratic republic.
Getting to a popular vote
Getting an amendment passed wouldn't necessarily be impossible. Yes, the formula for assigning EC votes gives small states their unfair two extra Senatorial votes. But the winner-take-all feature that almost all states have in place gives large states an even bigger unfair advantage. 51% majorities in these big states "steal" far more EC votes from the 49% losers, than similarly slight majorities in the small states can swing. One (but only one) problem with the EC system is indeed that it distorts the principle of one-man-one-vote, but it doesn't systematically favor small states in this respect. If we can achieve a consensus on the value of avoiding putting a popular vote loser, in some cases a loser by a very large percentage, in the WH, then there really are no countervailing particular advantages that the EC gives any set of voters that create any powerful incentive to maintain the system because its unfairness is tilted to help them in particular.
That said, getting an amendment passed is indeed a cumbersome and difficult business even in the absence of warring sectional interests. Fortunately, an amendment would not be required, at all, to get us to a popular vote. All that would be required is for states equalling > 50% of the EC votes to all pass laws handing their EC votes to whoever wins the popular vote total nationwide. These laws could be made conditional, so that the EC votes only go to the national popular vote winner if the required number of states have also passed such laws
Apparently history . . .,
Yes the minority of states that will count changes over time, but in any given time that is still a sucky result.
Adam Villani,
Right, as I wrote way up above:
"Yep [the electoral college system] sucks, but it is also shielded from reform by the structure of the Senate, which in turn is shielded from reform by the Constitution itself."
So while there is little real justification for the electoral college system, it is also extremely unlikely to be going away. That is why something like the NPV law is likely the best option available--it will simulate a direct election, without actually requiring a Constitutional amendment first.
Posted by LFC | July 18, 2008 12:54 PM
There is very little difference between Electoral College outcomes and popular vote outcomes ... if winner take all is replaced by proportional distribution of votes.
Actually, that's not quite true. California has 55 electoral votes for a population of 36,458,000, which is one vote per 662,873 people. Wyoming has 3 electoral votes for a population of 515,000 people, which is one vote per 171,667 people.
No, I've done the numbers ... its quite true.
Now, in theory its feasible for the two to be different, which is why it is interesting to run the numbers and see that the results of proportional allocation of Electoral College votes matches the popular vote results fairly closely, and far better than the winner-take-all system, which disenfranchises so many people in so many states.
What does show up with proportional allocation is the tendency of marginal candidates to attract electoral votes in the over-sized states, so there would have to be some threshold to attract electors ... perhaps 10%.
So a vote in WY counts almost 4X more than one in CA. That's just wrong.
I quite agree with this argument that CA is over-sized for a single state in a Federal Republic and should be divided into from three to five more reasonable sized states.
"I quite agree with this argument that CA is over-sized for a single state in a Federal Republic and should be divided into from three to five more reasonable sized states."
Yes, but since that would give them +8 votes in the Senate, that's not likely to happen. It also wouldn't fix the distortions of the EC-- divided five ways, I'm just ball-parking here, but that should give them about 63 votes between 34.468m people-- so one per 578k, still less than 1/3 of a Wyoming vote.
Plus, that doesn't address the issue of states like Montana, where each vote would still be about half a Wyoming vote.
Would abolition of electoral college encourage development of third and fourth, etc. parties? If so, that would be a valid reason to abolish the E college. Americans increasingly cannot be stereotyped as Democrats and Republicans, liberals or consrvatives. Any thoughts?
Not without a runoff!
A popular vote between an indefinite number of candidates to choose one winner does not necessarily produce desired results.
Take for instance the example of the 2000 election. Give Ralph Nader some more votes that would have otherwise gone to Gore and now George Bush is the popular vote winner, while the majority of Americans would have chosen Gore in a head-to-head race.
Without a second-place vote or a runoff, the popular vote is not a succinct solution.
The electoral college also provides representation for those in less populous areas and states, whose beliefs and priorities may vary significantly from those in highly populated urban areas. These minorities must be protected, as should any minority opinion.
The electoral college is certainly broken, but it can be fixed. Decreasing the proportion between registered voters and electoral votes would be one way to fix it. I believe the best solution also includes a DNC Primary-style system of allocating a certain number of electoral votes to the popular vote result, but not all of it.
There's a huge unintended consequence with getting rid of the electoral college that people blithely ignore: If you're going to scrap it, you need something in place to ensure the winner isn't someone with a very small plurality. A run-off system, a la France, would certainly be preferable to FPTP. But you can't just "get rid" of it and expect not to encourage the US equivalents of extremist candidates like Jean Marie Le Pen. We need a threshold for victory, which the EC provides.
I don't think the electoral college is ideal, but its positive features shouldn't be ignored.
DTM said, "to get real voting power in the current system, a state has to turn itself into a swing state."
I've looked at arguments over this issue numerous times in the past, and nobody ever seems to notice another unintended consequence of abolishing the EC: without it, the *entire nation* is essentially treated as one big state, and most of the time (unlike in the last two elections, where nationwide the popular vote was quite unusually close by historical standards), the entire country would *not* be a "swing state".
Imagine if instead of being 51%/49% split nationwide, it was 55%/45% one way or the other. Then, millions and millions of people across the country would have to change their minds, all in the same direction, to make any difference to the outcome. Even if it was as close as 51%/49%, well over a million people would have to shift the same direction to shift us from being, say, a red country to a blue country. So except in rare years (like 2000) where the nationwide split was very, very close, the winner could often be predicted months in advance, and, just like nobody's vote is very important in Wyoming today, nobody's vote *in the entire country* would be very important, most of the time!
The fact is, in any "districted" election (such as the electoral college), the voters by and large will have far greater "voting power" (likelihood that their vote will affect the outcome) than in a direct NPV election, except on those rare occasions when the national split is very close. Here are two references that go into far more detail on this:
http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm
http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2004/10/the_electoral_c.html
(The first link above points out that sports fans "understand the underlying principle. In
a championship series, the contest becomes more equal, and the underdog has a better chance, when a team has to win more games, not just score more points.")
So if we care whether people feel their votes count enough to motivate them to bother voting, abolishing the EC is the last thing we should do!
It *would* make sense to get rid of the two "extra" electoral votes each state gets and generally make the number of delegates more closely proportional to their population.
It might make even more sense to change to smaller, more equally sized districts, which would give everyone even more voting power, but for the problem that many regions (like many states currently) are populated with a large majority from one party or the other.
So what would really make sense would be to use randomized (non-geographic) "pseudo-districts" (e.g., everyone with the same last-4-digits of their SSN would be treated as a "district", so whichever candidate won among that group of people would get that groups delegate), so that your vote would count even if you lived in an area where voters of one party or the other were a majority.
Imagine: your group's delegate would be chosen based on the votes of about 2,000 eligible voters who had the same last-4-digits, so if the split was around 51%/49%, just 10 changed votes could sway your group the other way. If you knew that, would you stay home for the next election? Every single person's vote could really make a difference. (Yes, there would then be 10,000 delegates, so your group's delegate would be less powerful by him/herself than one of the 400 some delegates we have now, but if you work out the math, as they do in the links above, each voter still ends up being much more powerful in the districted election.)
The downside of all this is, in some sense, it would make elections somewhat more "random," in that a few changed votes scattered here and there would be more likely to alter the outcome. But to me, that's the point: assuming we want an engaged citizenry, we should create a system in which as small a number of voters as possible have the potential to make a real difference, while still being a fair election where everyone's vote is treated the same.
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An argument in favor of the electoral college that I never seem to hear is that it reduces the potential effects of corruption. Because our electorate is sharply divided, many electoral areas are controlled by one party or another. This is true in both democratic (e.g. Chicago 1960) and republican (e.g. Florida 2000, Ohio 2004) areas. At this point, the damage that a corrupt electoral official can produce is limited by the electoral college -- the most one can change is one's own state. (Sometimes this can have national effects, but only in cases where the difference is in fact very very close to 50/50.) In general, if we abolish the electoral college, there will be strong incentive to pad vote counts in areas where all of the electoral officials are members of one party or another. Can you imagine a national recount? We can't even do a full state recount in many places. If there were a national vote, I would not trust the numbers from party strongholds. How would we ensure valid counts from those areas?
Comments closed August 01, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
The only consistent argument against eliminating the electoral college that I hear today is that liberals want to eliminate the electoral college. For enough people in the the right places that answer suffices.
Posted by Russell Jones | July 18, 2008 12:11 PM