Every four years it’s the same thing: dump the Electoral College and give the presidency to the candidate who wins the most votes. This may be especially relevant since Mitt Romney holds a slight lead in the popular vote but would lose to Barack Obama in the Electoral College if the election were held today
Hans Von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundaton, sees it differently. He writes on the Heritage Foundation website that the National Popular Vote effort would lead to a further marginalizing of smaller states. Campaigns would instead focus all of their attention on major media markets where the most voters could be reached for the least cost.
Relying on a popular vote instead of a state-based system, he argues, would trade swing states for a focus on large urban areas, where advertising dollars can reach more people.
The Electoral College “embodies the balance [the Founders] aimed to achieve through deference to states with smaller populations and by ensuring that the interests of these states be reflected in national decision-making,” he writes. Not to mention that in 2000, the recount in Florida caused a collective rise in the national blood pressure. Imagine a national recount.
But supporters of a popular vote system say it is more important to achieve a more democratic ideal than one in which swing states are so key.
“This problem would disappear if we had a truly national election with one electorate and votes counting the same wherever they were cast,” said Jack Rakove,” a Pulitzer Prize winning Stanford political scientist. “Then the candidates would have to think more creatively about how to mobilize a national electorate, rather than pouring money into the televised advertisements that must drive voters in the battleground states completely bonkers. The parties would have the incentive to attract voters throughout the country, which is now a matter of complete indifference to them.”
Variously referred to as “anachronistic” and even “anti-democratic,” the Electoral College was originally made a part of the Constitution because the Founders really didn’t trust ordinary people to choose a president wisely. Eventually, the college was reformed so that rather than electing “electors,” citizens vote for president in the various states with a winner-take-all award system given to the victor (except for Maine and Nebraska).
But it is what the Electoral College has become that makes it vital to the democratic process.
We are a continent-sized country made up of 50 sovereign states with an urban-rural split of about 75-25. The most common complaint against the EC is that only about a dozen states matter in the final tally while the rest of the country is largely ignored.
This is true — today. But what about tomorrow? The reason candidates only play in swing states is because of the polarization of our politics. Will California always be blue? Will Texas always be red? Over the last 224 years, states have shifted back and forth based on a variety of factors, not limited to changing demographics, changing political party philosophy, even the leadership of one or two charismatic individuals.
George Will points out that the EC gives us a stability that might disappear if we went to a direct popular vote system:
The electoral vote system shapes the character of winning majorities,” said Will. “By avoiding proportional allocation of electoral votes, America’s system — under which Ross Perot in 1992 got 19 percent of the popular votes and zero electoral votes — buttresses the dominance of two parties, and pulls them to the center, producing a temperate politics of coalitions rather than a proliferation of ideological factions with charismatic leaders.
This has been true in the past and while the last decade has seen a fracturing of the political polity, there is no reason to believe that this is a permanent alteration in the political landscape.
From a personal standpoint, watching candidates standing on a tractor in Kansas addressing farmers, or visiting a small town in West Virginia is real Americana and would almost certainly become extinct if a direct popular vote system was installed. Candidates would take up residence in the cities and suburbs of the 10 largest cities and vie for the voters’ affections. It’s basically the same argument to be made against a national primary. Watching how candidates interact with Americans of every background is important for assessing their worthiness for office.
The EC also requires a candidate to win a truly national race. He must appeal to more than coastal elites and urban snobs. Do we really want every presidential race decided by California, New York, and Texas?
Some of the arguments for doing away with the EC are compelling and shouldn’t be dismissed outright. But surely there is room in the modern world for an “anachronistic” holdover from our founding that is still relevant today.
There is absolutely zero reason for a Alaska, Montana or South Carolina to stay in a Federal Union whose course is always determined by voters in the major cities. Better to go off on their own path.
And that is the answer for Jack Rakove, whose book Original Meanings is something of a slog that I gave up on 2/3 of the way in. Folks in the non-urban areas would get it.
In more than one way. As a proof, I point you to the Owens Dry Lake bed. Which didn’t use to be dry.
There is zero reason to live in Central California. You will never do anything but get ran to the ground by SoCal and the Bay Area and be subject to their whims.
This debate has been had before. There is a *reason* why most of the old colonial capitals had to be abandoned and new state capitals moved inland after the Revolutionary War, and it wasn’t just for cooler summer temperatures.
The above is also a reminder that major cities “steal” water like crazy, limiting opportunities for future growth in areas so reduced in resources.
Under Rakove’s system those people would be just that much less able to say “no”.
I would also suggest that as the ones proposing this move are usually of the liberal side of the aisle (where we always try to adjust reality to fit theory when there is a discrepancy, no matter if reality works), and that as radical environmentalists also are of that side of the aisle–the chances of getting the Western states to embrace this are zero. They are already fully aware of the effort to make larger and larger parts of America a permanent nature preserve so that those in coastal cities may feel all is right in the world as they read their morning papers. If those actually living in such areas can’t do anything economically meaningful besides serve as Sherpas for tourists, so be it.
There will bever be 3/4 of the states approving Rakove’s plan.
The intent of the Founders was forever destroyed when the vote was given to non property owning, non tax paying and female to boot, citizens. If Oby wins this election and I fail to see how he can fail … secession is the only hope of saving some portion of our Founder’s creation and our very existence.
The intent of the founders was destroyed when the 17th amendment passed. The Senate should have remained appointed by the various legislative bodies of each state. By making the Senate directly elected, the check against one faction rule to the detriment of each individual state was diluted and lost
I think a better idea is to replace the 17th with an amendment which permits the chief executive of each state to appoint a Senator, for the executive to appoint a Senator to any seat vacant for more than 10 days–which Senator serves no more than one year, and for the people and legislature of each state to elect one Senator each, the popularly elected Senators to serve no more than four year terms, and to then be ineligible to serve for the number of years they have most recently served. The executively and legislatively appointed Senators to serve at the pleasure of the office who selected them, which is to say they have indefinite terms of office. Should make them quite responsive to state governing institutions. If it is not already clear, I propose three Senators per state, one of which is popularly elected, and who can serve only non-consecutive terms. No more of the three classes of identical Senators serving six year terms.
I propose keeping a good chunk of the Senate as being popularly elected, because the Senate should I think keep the duty of singularly approving treaties–the people’s direct representatives should have a say in such.
And yes, the Electoral College should be kept as such.
Democracy is a means to an end, and it is a good one, but the problems of democracy cannot be solved by more pure forms of it, but only by divided and restricted government.
The Electoral College is an excellent mechanism for preventing geographical sectarianism from developing, similarly, the two-party system does a good job of forcing the parties to not be too extreme for the center, witness the spanking the Dems received in 2010 and the walloping they are about to receive.
Obamacare will be a Pyrrhic for them–if we can hold Romney to his promises and take the Senate soon enough.
It doesn’t have to be 2012, but if not then it MUST be done in 2014.
Operation Counterweight.
If you really want to have a State-level “voice” in legislation, then I say go with that State repeal amendment, and allow a number of States to vote to veto a law. I would go with an EU-type thing – 26 states with at least 270 electoral votes and the law is voided.
That gets your more direct State-level participation without getting bogged down with changing multiple branches and electoral structures.
Of course I would also prefer if popular votes for electors were actively prohibited, and State legislatures had to apportion their electors directly. That would make people gratuitously angsty, but that’s why they shouldn’t be voting for electors in the first place.
Obviously I disagree. There is the potential for the state legislatures/governments to see advantage in a treaty (or national legislation) which is more to their benefit than to their constituents. The people’s representatives should have a say in treaties (and two shots at stopping legislation) is not untoward.
Having states numbering at least 26 and possessing 270 EC votes empowered with a right of repeal over national legislation would be a good additional measure.
No, the intent of the Founders in providing for the selection of Senators by the State legislatures was destroyed when partisan faction at the State level interfered with the selection and seating of Senators on a regular basis, leaving the Senate short of its full membership and States without any representation there on a regular basis. Faction had already invalidated that check.
It should also be noted that several States had already chosen to allow for the popular election of their Senators before the 17th Amendment was passed. The only complaint that could be properly assessed against the 17th Amendment is that it forced all of the States to use a popular election rather than allowing the legislatures to continue to fail to appoint and send Senators on their own.
This one’s the moby.
That shows as little comprehension of the intent of the Founders as the drivel from these groups that call the Constitution “antiquated”.
Nothing in the Constitution up through the first 10 Amendments in any restricts or requires States to restrict the electorate of the more numerous branch of their State legislatures.
A few State legislatures at the time of the adoption of the Constitution directly allowed women to vote and actually changed away from that.
While a number of State legislatures had property requirements to vote, most of them got rid of them during the lifetimes and even active participation of the Founders. They did this on a State level as the Constitution explictly provides for.
I like the idea of winner takes all at the level of each congressional district (435 total). Direct election is just mob rule and an invitation for voter fraud.
Its 435 congressional and 100 senate. By CD there would be 2 EC votes statewide and 1 from each CD. It is actually quite proportional and limits the impact of a recount. The winner takes all is a state decided issue, each state can change it at their pleasing. It makes a much lower chance to having the popular vote winner not win the EC.
The winner takes all was brought in at a time where it was a long hard journey by train to go to Iowa or Nevada. Now with the internet, TV, and air travel campaigning at the CD level is pretty easy to do. Then markets like Pittsburg or San Diego would see a return of the candidates campaigning in their district. Also, more linkage of the Congressman and the candidate.
Actually, if we went to once EV per district, the Maine and Nebraska way, it would vastly increase the chance that the majority vote winner would lose the electin. NYC, Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, and Rochester assure that NY’s EV’s go to Dems. 70+% in some CD’s in those cities. In all other CD’s, there’s a more even split, where the Republican candidate gets a majority. 55-45, and sometimes as much as 60-40, but rarely 70-30 or better.
It would pretty much ensure more conservative candidates from both parties for decades to come.
Let’s be serious! This is another effort by folks of The National Popular Vote Movement (NPV)to jury-rig, and gerrymander USA Elections. See, they’ve been working very hard to insure Mr. Obama’s re-election since Rahm Emmanuel was put in charge of 2010′s US Census (which has undercounted a large swath of white populations and over counted a huge swath of Hispanic communities across the USA). This, in a complaint in a Texas brief. Know what?, all NPV efforts are failures…the Electoral College reigns supreme. The Wisdom of Our Founding Fathers once again, is centuries ahead of Our European breatheren.
Here’s the way things are as of 2012 elections:
National Popular Vote Bill
“The non-partisan National Popular Vote Bill is being considered in every state and has now been adopted by enough states to total 132 electoral votes”:
CA 55 | DC 3 | HI 4 | IL 20 | MA 11 | MD 10 | NJ 14 | VT 3 | WA 12. PA was going to adopt it but tabled the vote at the last minute (but may re-surface from New Left pressures).
This is another effort, along with a USA Executive Branch of government, running amok and rough shod over both Congress and Senate with some 923 Executive Orders (that MUST be repealed), by New Left Progressive theorists seeking the collapse of capitalism through their “incremental socialism” agendas (since the 60′s Revolution folly).
Besides repeal of Obamacare; Dodd-Frank; Sarbanes-Oxley, the 17th Amendment has to be added to this travesty of legislative socialism. While We The People are repealing Amendments…put the 16th amendment right on the front burner, too. A Flat Tax of 15% is sufficient along with Paul Ryans Gold Standard Committee…put the USA Congress on a strict diet tied to Gold. Amen.
The States Rule. 10th Amendment Reigns Supreme…Arizona has proven this…thank the Good Lord for Governor Jan Brewer (R) to wake-up Americans to the vagarities of totalitarian governments and their inabilities to fashion policies and Procedures for We The People living and working in a capitalist, bottom-up, freedom loving, God Fearing citizens country…We’re NOT SERFS NOR PEONS willling to go back to a Dark Ages’ Guild System type of society. States have the Right to institute legislation for an Electoral College format for Elections, and Senators elected at State-level, too.
God Bless America. Pray. Amen. Decimate the Democratic Socialists of America that reign in Our US Congress and Senate.
If we get rid of the Electoral College, in the interest of fairness, we will have to change the way we determine which baseball team wins the World Series. We will have to count the number of runs scored by a team, rather than the number of games won by a team.
It makes no difference whether a republican candidate gets 49% or 2% of the vote in california and same thing for a dem in texas. That’s quite simply *wrong*. It is entirely anti-democratic (not “anti-democratic”).
I think that we should encourage people to waste their energy trying to get any amendment, which would require a super majority, through this divided country.
I do wish that more states would emulate Maine and Montana and exercise their power to award two Electoral votes to the candidate who carries the state and one vote to the candidate who carries each legislative district.
Why not borrow from Westminster.
Divide the election into 435, or whatever number, of districts, and whomever has the highest number of “seats” won, gets to be President.
That way, cities will not have a proportionally too large impact on elections.
For instance, Baltimore goes Democrat so heavily, that whatever the lead the Republican has in the rest of maryland, it all goes for naught.
Sorry, parliamentary government is drastically inferior to divided government. It’s far too easy then for fringe parties to dictate to the center. It’s one of the reasons Europe so far more a socialist hellhole of uncoverable debt and unaccountable bureaucracy.
My prediction is one of two things would happen if the Electoral College were done away with.
Either the states with smaller populations would revolt and bring up that whole secession discussion again as their interests were run roughshod over by a mob based majority – or the final nail in the coffin of federalism would be pounded home as the states became little more than powerless facilitators of mob rule on a national level.
If the states successfully seceded, the days of the USA would be numbered from that point on.
If the states became mere extensions of the federal government, then the federal and state governments would still collapse eventually by virtue of its own overbearing weight as nothing – and I mean NOTHING – would be seen as outside the domain of federal authority.
The first option is painful, but quicker – the second option is slower, but would result in greater misery in the long run.
It’s another lib favorite, because that way they can have 100,000,000 black votes for their candidate when we only have 40,000,000 blacks in the country.
They are liars and cheats. Treating them sensibly plays into their hands.
If Romney doesn’t start a RICO investigation into the dems, he is a traitor, too.
Just how much evidence do we need?
100,000,000 dead?
That’s what they say they want. Why do we not take them at their word?
The Mafia was never as bad as the modern Democratic Party.
Popular vote for Pres would be a disaster! Look back at Florida 2000. If the rule is the winner of the popular vote wins the office, then the campaigns will be different which will make it more likely that there will be a popular vote tie (say, 2000 votes separating the top two vote-getters). Now imagine the recount, NATIONWIDE!!! Because EVERY vote counts! That means not just “hanging chads” in West Palm Beach county, but dead voters in Chicago, absentee votes in Maine, “purchased” votes in Point Barrow, Alaska, voter intimidation in Philadelphia, and so on. Every part of the sordid underbelly of our electoral system will be exposed, the country ripped apart, and whoever is finally elected will be even less accepted as the winner than George Bush was in 2000. For that reason alone, the founders were geniuses!
Not gonna happen. Even if the requisite amendment made it through Congress (which it wouldn’t), it would still need 38 states to ratify it. Not gonna happen.
It’s more interesting to consider a state-by-state movement to award electors based on the state’s popular vote (as some states already do). I wonder if anyone’s done an analysis of past elections on that basis.
This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. With the ec elections are based on California new York and Texas. If we got rid of it everyones vote would count. The candidate that the majority of America wants will get voted in. I just don’t understand….