September 17, 2004
Electoral Reform
While campaign finance reform has gotten a lot of well-deserved attention in the last several years, other types of reform have gotten much less attention, in spite of the fact that they could have widespread support. Two Democratic Congressmen, Brian Baird of Washington and Gene Green of Texas, have teamed up this week to introduce a Constitutional Amendment that would do away with the Electoral College and install our Presidents by direct popular vote.
Now it's a shame that we need to amend the Constitution to implement a common sense procedure, but that is the most certain way to effect such a change, and really it should be popular. Thomas Jefferson was an outspoken opponent of the Electoral College from its inception. Many of the early arguments in its favor have been obviated by today's technology, so getting rid of it should be a slam dunk, but both parties have vested interests in the system, so it's an uphill battle in spite of clear popular appeal. No less than 700 previous attempts have been made to eliminate or modify it so far, to no avail. If this year's election brings us a mismatch between the popular vote winner and the Electoral College winner for the second time in as many elections, however, maybe the will to do away with it will finally be overwhelming.
Other forms of Electoral reform well worth adopting are Instant Runoff Voting, which would empower the electorate to support third party and independent candidates without "wasting" their vote, and a depoliticization of the drawing of Congressional District boundaries. That one is much tougher, but the intensely partisan and divisive House of Representatives of the current day owes its fangs to the abominable creation of safe districts. There's a reason that the Senate is consistently the more moderate body, but that's a discussion for another day.
For a primer on how the electoral college works, visit V. Edward Martin's WatchBlog article on the subject. Misha Tseytlin presented cogent arguments against the Electoral College aside from the obvious one that its result might not match the popular result.
Posted by Walker Willingham at September 17, 2004 02:49 AMWalker,
I must object to the dismantling of the Electoral College. It allows the country to continue in the worse case senerio. However, I am in favor of a constitutional admendment which puts all the votes into play. Based on the facts that our forefathers could only dream of 24 hour mass media in their log cabins, I feel that each state should split the votes based on percentages. But, just to keep it interesting lets say for each state that a candidate gets 75% of the vote in they win them all. This way every party has a lot bigger stake in the game.
This is an interesting subject, Walker. Thanks.
Being a Californian, I’m actually a little leery of direct democracy. Most of our budget problems can be traced to referendums that mandate a specific amount of funding, regardless of whether it’s actually needed. Having all that money earmarked by law (passed by “the people” who have problems balancing their checkbook, rather than by legislators with the aid of cost/benefit reports and analysts) makes it impossible to balance the budget when things get tight.
Dismantling the electoral college would also also defacto make this country a democracy, rather than a republic. States with smaller populations would have a much smaller voice. I don’t have an opinion yet on whether that’s good or bad, but it’s something to think about.
Electoral college reform might be interesting. What if electors from a state didn’t vote in a block for the statewide victor? What if they voted proportionally to reflect the percentage of total votes cast in a state for each candidate?
What if the electors voted for the candidate they thought was best, rather than according to the will of the people? Wasn’t that the original intent of the electoral collage? :)
Interesting subject.
Doesn’t have a prayer! The only scheme that would is what Colorado is voting on. Proportional electoral college delegates representing the proportion of the popular vote. Candidate A gets 30% of the popular votes and Candidate B gets 70%. Can. A gets 30% of the delegates and Can. B gets 70% of them.
Does away with the 51% popular vote walking away with all of the electoral college delegates, which means voters votes count even if they are not a majority in a state. Yet, it keeps the electoral college which softens the differences between large and small population states.
How does one can the explanation into a 30 second sound bite for mass consumption, though?
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 17, 2004 05:58 AMDavid,
“Doesn’t have a prayer”
I agree that the political pressure against such a change is extraordinary - from both parties and from the states - but I also think you underestimate how much pressure for electoral reform it would generate if two elections in a row were decided contrary to the popular vote.
A modification to allow proportional apportionment of electors state by state certainly would be an improvement, and even Henry’s system which rewards candidates for strongly carrying particular states has some appeal, but ultimately I don’t see any cogent argument to sustain any system where the candidate with the most popular support isn’t awarded the job.
AP,
Dismantling the electoral college would also also defacto make this country a democracy, rather than a republic.That’s simply false, and I’m surprised you would claim such. I’m in rabid agreement with you that direct democracy, for instance on budget issues, is the way of fools. In my state, WA, we have similar issues because voting on separate issues, the people will spend more money AND raise less to pay for it. Budget issues should be off the table as far as initiatives are concerned. But using an antiquated system to elect our president has nothing to do with being a republic. We remain a republic as long as we elect representatives to Congress and Legislatures.
Finally, my own understanding is that without changing the constitution, the states already have the latitude to tweak the way that they assign electors based on the vote (note Maine and Nebraska’s CD-based systems), but that Congress cannot mandate that to the states. The problem is that big electoral states have no incentive to reform on their own, because doing so would diminish their own electoral importance. Why tweak a system around the edges when there is one obvious fix. Also note that the small population states still get their extra representation in the overall system by having disproportionate representation in the U.S. Senate. I’m actually OK with that as a concession to the importance of those states beyond their proportional population percentage to the country as a whole.
Posted by: Walker Willingham at September 17, 2004 08:56 AMDavid,
Proportional delegation would have to be done on a state-by-state basis, probably as a running point in a governor’s race (in order to get the visibility it needs). A candidate for governor in New York (for example) could claim to “support presidential election reform, removing the ‘winner-take-all’ system and allowing every New Yorker’s vote to be counted.”
Of course, it would require the right political climate in each state. Swing states wouldn’t want to change, because they benefit from the current system too much. A state would have to be solid red or blue at the national level, but with a strong two-party system within the state.
A good example would be here in Indiana. We have a strong two-party system within the state, with a long string of Democratic governors. On the national level, though, we’re solid red — Republican all the way. (Of course that could change if Evan Bayh ever runs for president.) Indiana Democrats should be pushing for proportional delegation here.
Of course, if more red states than blue states adopt it, the Democrats get an edge (and vice versa), so states will have to move carefully. But as more states adopt such a system, the balance will shift, and the current “swing states” will change in priority. Eventually, even they will be pressured into “joining the democracy”.
Posted by: Rob Cottrell at September 17, 2004 09:07 AMAmending the Constitution would require the consent of many of the small states that would be giving up most of the influence they now have. I am not sure we can rely on such altruism.
We only rarely have anomalies such as the 2000 race and consider the alternative. In 2000, NOBODY won a majority. The difference between Gore’s plurality and Bush tally was much less than 1%. We would have needed a nation wide recount and you would have had people counting dangling chads in all fifty states instead of just Florida.
The electoral system not only spreads the power across the states, it spreads and reduces the risk of fraud. Imagine the 2000 election without the Electoral College. Gore won the popular vote by about 500,000. There would have to be a recount and it could have reversed the outcome, but would a recount be free of fraud? Political machines can easily manufacture that many votes. When the Daley machine swung Illinois for JFK in 1960, they could affect only one state. Without the Electoral College you could have shifted the whole country.
The Electoral College, in fact, works best when elections are close. Bill Clinton won in 1992 with only 43% of the vote. Imagine having to explain that every day for four years. The Electoral College made him the clear winner. We don’t always like the outcomes, but would Gore supporters been any happier if he had lost after a national recount; would Bush supporter have accepted a Gore victory margin of ½ of 1% without complaint. There is no way to make the loser feel satisfied in a close election.
Popular election of the president would be an unmitigated disaster. If we have popular election of the president, the candidates can then focus on just a few large metropolitan areas such as New York and Los Angeles. The rest of the country will truly then be reduced to, as it’s called inside the beltway, flyover country. The founders were not idiots; they set the system up to prevent popular election. While technology has changed, and voters can be informed better and faster than ever, the underlying problem still exists - big states and small states. With the Electoral College, the small states do have a say in the presidential race, just as they do in the Senate. Of course Jefferson was against the Electoral College, he was from Virginia, at the time a very large state; he wanted to try to preserve the power of his large state. Also, doesn’t the Electoral College function in a manner similar to the format of the World Series? The World Series rewards the team that wins the most games, regardless of the total number of runs scored. The Electoral College functions the same way, rewarding the candidate that wins the most states, regardless of the total number of votes. While it is not a perfect system, it is a brilliant compromise to include voters in all states in the electoral process.
Posted by: Troy at September 17, 2004 11:02 AMBill Clinton won in 1992 with only 43% of the vote. Imagine having to explain that every day for four years.
How is that hard to explain, jack? It was a 3-way race that year with Ross Perot pulling about 20% of the vote.
AP,
Sure it would easy enough to explain that the winner got the most votes, and plurality wins in a newly devised direct election scheme, but I understand Jack’s point that the electoral system provides a mechanism for close elections to seem more decisive. But I still say that regardless of the mechanism used, it doesn’t change who voted for whom, and the EC has demerits in terms of how campaigns are run and how voters in non-battleground states feel disenfranchised.
Jack also presented the strongest case overall of retaining the EC, as a mechanism for isolating potential voting irregularities to individual states, and making reform minded folks such as me look again at potential difficulties inherent in a system which depends on accurately tallying the nationwide popular vote.
There is also no denying that the barriers to making such a change are huge given the requirements of passing an amendment, and the lack of incentive for so many of the states to go along. However, difficulty of passage is no reason not to float the idea, and the Congressmen’s timing such that it would be under consideration at a time when it is possible that two elections in a row will have had a mismatch between the EC and the popular vote, is about the best timing imaginable.
If we could somehow add Instant Runoff Voting voting to the mix, then we would have a system where people could vote their conscience without worrying about the spoiler effect, and we would know that at least among the top vote getters more of the voters preferred choice #1 over choice #2. They say it’s to complicated, but it has worked already in some European locales, and people don’t even have to understand the system in full to simply rank their choice.
Yeah, I’m a dreamer - “but I’m not the only one.”
Posted by: Walker Willingham at September 19, 2004 11:41 AMMuch of the apathy and cynicism about our political system and government in general can be traced to the perception that “My vote won’t make a difference” which in turn becomes an excuse for diverting time and energy from political issues to football games and beer.
If it is true, that the health of democracy depends upon an informed electorate as our founding fathers indicated, then we simply MUST end the disenfrachising of half the country’s voters who live in states predetermined by the Electoral College to be either Republican or Democrat long before an election is even held. The Electoral College sets up our nation to be governed by polls which determine before the election which states are going to be Red or Blue. That all but eliminates the need for elections except as legal validation of preelection media and party controlled statistical polls.
This is NOT what was intended by our founding fathers or the Constitution. Eliminating or modifying (as in Colorado’s proposal for proportional delegation to the Elec. College) is the only chance America has of reinstating an informed and vested electorate. Failing to do so will only result in large investments in the NFL and Beer companies in light of their ever growing profitability.
Posted by: David R. Remer at September 19, 2004 05:28 PMif the electoral collage is changed how will this effect us?
Posted by: alex at November 2, 2004 01:20 PM
