My friend Ben Zycher has a timely oped in the LA Times today making the case in favor of the electoral college system. I am of two minds in this debate, but I must say Ben is persuasive.
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The benefit of the Electoral College is more about what hasn’t happened than what has happened. Regional heroes have been largely excluded from the electoral process and deprived of a platform for broadcasting their demagogic messages. Think of George Wallace, Huey Long, even Jeff Davis, who could have received large and dangerous majorities from their home regions, enough for them to decide which of the other candidates could win. Think how much impact third party candidates have today, plausibly seen as deciding the elections in 1992 and 2000. Without the Electoral College, that impact would be greatly enhanced.
More information at
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/08/on_the_electora.html#comments
Frank Warner has been posting frequently about the EC. He is opposed to it.
It is not the EC per se that has the moderating impact, but rather the winner-takes-all rule. It was originally implemented by the separate states in order to maximize their own impact. Colorado will be shooting itself in the foot by splitting its vote.
As a candidate looks at Colorado, the potential benefit from visiting Colorado and promoting Colorado-friendly policies is large. Colorado’s status as a swing state makes it very attractive to both candidates. If it were to drop the winner-takes-all rule, no one would care about the potential gain or loss of a single EC vote.
If you wanted to maximize your own influence you should establish a group of like-minded centrists who sign a pact to vote as a bloc. This kind of voterís union would multiply the impact of your vote, especially if it were a swing group with unpredictable decisions. Local politicians would beat a path to your door.
To better understand how the “small” states felt at the founding, consider how you would like to be bound by United Nations votes on a proportional representation basis. If China and India were able to cast votes for all their citizens and make them binding, the UN would never have formed. If not for the disproportionate influence given to the smaller states under the constitution, the US would not have formed.
In the early days of our country there was only the electoral college. We are a republic and as such are governed by representatives. It was the representatives in the electoral college and ultimately the Senate that chose the president and vice president. There was not a popular vote for president, nor was there a “ticket”. The vice president was the number two winner.
So the popular vote came in the 18th century but the electoral college remained to give all states a say. Even today the large urban areas with the large numbers of electoral votes get the most attention but without the electoral college even more of the country would go without representation.
There is a difference between mob rule and representative democracy.
Seems to me that what Colorado is trying to do is to subvert the Electoral College by apportioning the popular vote. It is really short sighted. Because of the EC, Colorado is in play this year, without it she is a bystander.
During the 2000 vote count, a professor wrote an article explaining how the EC works. It is a perfect metaphor.
The EC is like the World Series.
Can you win the WS even if you don’t score the most runs?
Yes you can.
It happened, the team which scored the most runs didn’t win the most games. They scored a tremendous amount of runs in the 3 games they won, but they lost the 4.
Would you want to change how the WS determines the winner?
I agree that Colorado’s splitting its EC votes is bad for Colorado. It is good for the Democrats, though, who expect to be outvoted.
The underlying problem is that Colorado is filling up with people who do not identify themselves as Coloradoans. They have come here from elsewhere, didn’t grow up here, don’t vacation here, didn’t go to school here, don’t particularly have friends, family, or ties here. Having their vote swamped by the native vote feels unfair to them so they want to change the rules and break their vote out separately.
In Minnesota, by contrast, there is a tremendous amount of state pride; people in Minnesota have often lived there for generations, their families and friends are all there, and they are justifiably proud of what they are producing in their state. It makes sense to them to vote as a block because they think of themselves in those terms.
The insight Sandy P referes to may be found here at http://www.discover.com/web-exclusives/math-against-tyranny/
RTWT
“Math Against Tyranny”
By Will Hively September 30, 2004
“When you cast your vote this month, you’re not directly electing the president, you’re electing members of the electoral college. They elect the president. An archaic, unnecessary system? Mathematics shows, says one concerned American, that by giving your vote to another, you’re ensuring the future of our democracy.”
This mathematician shows that the electoral college actually makes your vote MORE powerful rather than less because you have more possibility to influence the election.
An the famous metaphor is there:
“In baseball’s World Series, for example, the team that scores the most runs overall is like a candidate who gets the most votes. But to become champion, that team must win the most games.
In 1960, during a World Series as nail-bitingly close as that year’s presidential battle between Kennedy and Nixon, the New York Yankees,
with the awesome slugging combination of Mickey Mantle, Roger Maris, and Bill “Moose” Skowron, scored more than twice as many total runs as the
Pittsburgh Pirates, 55 to 27. Yet the Yankees lost the series, four games to three. Even Natapoff, who grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium, conceded that Pittsburgh deserved to win. “Nobody walked away saying it was unfair,” he says.”
“Why worry how easily one vote can turn an election, so long as each voter has equal power? One person, one vote–that’s all the math anyone
needs to know in a simple, direct election. Natapoff agrees that voters should have equal power. “The idea,” he says, “is to give every voter the largest equal share of national voting power possible.” Here’s a classic example of equal voting power: under a tyranny, everyone’s power
is equal to zero. Clearly, equality alone is not enough. In a democracy, individuals become less vulnerable to tyranny as their voting power
increases…
For those interested, here is a reasonable, brief history of the EC. JMO, but while the precise issues that brought it into being and influenced its evolution over the years have changed, the basic premise is still sound.
Oh, and here’s the How Stuff Works explanation of the EC.
The biggest election influence was racist Wallace in 68, making Nixon win — and making the Vietnam War a “republican” war.
Also got racist white Southern Dems to vote for somebody NOT a Dem — so it was easier for them to go with Reagan; or back to Clinton Dem in 92.
Here are some more links to FrankWarner posts on the EC:
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/08/new_york_times_.html
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/04/should_us_senat.html
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2003/12/nader_an_indepe.html
http://frankwarner.typepad.com/free_frank_warner/2004/08/on_the_electora.html