They’ll say this whether there’s an EC or PV in play, either way.
Perhaps we’d see different trends emerge as voters come out of the woodwork. I believe turnout is so low as is because Democrats in Texas stay home just as often as Republicans in California. With a larger population encouraged to vote, under the message that their vote means something, who knows what the end result might be.
With all due respect, the Founding Fathers died over 200 years ago. The country, and our society, has changed quite a bit since then. I’d like to think that people have become simultaneously both more autonomous and more likely to respect the freedoms of their fellow citizens just as much as their own. Obviously this isn’t the case universally, but I think the EC does just as much to limit progressive growth and provide an unnecessary handicap as it does to make us more ‘fair and balanced.’
Right…so I am not sure why people keep using it. Seems a non-starter to me. Should we be concerned that someone who wrote in “Goofy” as his candidate has been denied representation?
There might be an initial blip. But you can bet your bottom dollar that people would start forming coalitions. Eventually you would get one (or a coalition of coalitions) who guarantee they can deliver the vote to a candidate. Game theory demands it. People will want to maximize their vote and gain leverage over the candidates. Once a sufficiently large and cohesive coalition formed then all bets are off for everyone else. Stay at home because you cannot win.
The EC avoids this, to an extent, because the candidates must win lots of smaller races. So no overbearing majority can form to sway the election or at least it is far more difficult. Candidates must broaden their appeal to lots of different people…not just appeal to one group.
With all due respect I like what the Founding Fathers wrought. Fairness and equality were bedrock notions of the country. I see no compelling reason to undo that. And I think you are patently wrong that we all are better at respecting the freedoms of our fellow citizen. Indeed I have not seen such an assault on our freedoms in all my life as we have had the last decade or two as the culture wars heat up. There are absolutely people out there who want to restrict my rights and have achieved some success so far. Frankly it is scary.
Except that having subdivided regions can make things far worse than that example. For instance, if there are 51% Serbs and 49% Bosnians, but the country is divided into three states, and if we continue to make the rather silly assumption that no one ever votes for anything other than their racial origin, then it all comes down to gerrymandering. There could be two 60% serb states and one 80% bosnian state, and the serbs will always win every election forever, or alternatively two 60% bosnian states and one 90% serb state, and the bosnians will win every election forever. And of course in that case once a party is in power, they will presumably control the machinery of gerrymandering, and will be able to maintain their dominance.
In the straight 51-49 percent example, the 49 only need to convince a fairly small number of 51ers to switch their vote and they have a shot of winning the election. That’s actually easier than either of the 3-state situations I mentioned above.
I think that in this day and age of the internet, the idea of geographically based voting districts (and yes, that includes states when it comes to national elections) is fundamentally silly. I live in silicon valley, in California. My interests probably align a lot more closely with people in the tech pockets in places like Seattle, Austin and Boston than they do with ranchers in the central CA valley. And geographical districts also frequently render smallish groups totally helpless. If a group comprising 5ish percent of the population is extremely cohesive politically, there’s no reason why 5% of members of congress shouldn’t represent the wishes of that group. Which will never happen if they are scattered all over the country.
There are, yes. No one’s denying that there will always be groups held together by little more than common hatred. But I still don’t see how the EC succeeds at protecting the interests of everyone where the popular vote would fail to. You could point at the 2000 election, but again, the outcome is subjective. Does the minority who voted Bush into office still agree that doing so was in their best interest? How about those who have had their rights infringed upon since then?
The Presidential Election is the only one in which the Electoral College selects our leader as opposed to a direct popular vote. Countless local and state elections have been held under a popular vote, with less than chaotic results. Yet, for some reason, we need an EC to pick the President? 2sense makes a good point upthread:
I’m not sold on the question of why bother? either. Split as is, we’ve got 538 EVs. But why stop there? We could make sure we protect the interests of minorities who are concentrated in even smaller locales by divvying up EVs in proportion to population by county throughout the country. Or, even better, by city/town. Or even subdivision. Or, better yet, by individual vote. ETA: MaxTheVool also makes another great point–geographical districting is foolish.
The few times I’ve seen it discussed in the msm, it seems that the thinking goes like “the system is obviously broken if the EC winner does not win the popular vote”. Whilst I think the system is somewhat broken, that isn’t necessarily the right criteria to judge it. It seems that the only alternative usually considered is a simple popular vote.
I think a simple popular vote would be a bad idea. I know there is no perfect system but I believe we need to reduce the spoiler effect which means instant runoff or approval voting or range voting. By “spoiler” I don’t necessarily just mean minor candidate with perhaps just enough votes to change things. We could have an election with two significant similar candidates and a third significant candidate with opposing views. I know some would say that the “left” or “right” should just get their act together and choose one candidate to avoid handing the election to the third (least popular) candidate but … that just seems too simplistic to me.
Different voting systems in general is another whole discussion. IRV has it’s problems but it might be good for electing a president. It doesn’t really help minor parties get established (look at Australia) but it does eliminate the spoiler effect. The president is probably going to come from one of the major parties anyway.
Something more fair to minor parties could be considered for Congress.
I think it would be a difficult uphill battle to “sell” any sort of alternative voting system in the US. The topic just doesn’t fit in a 30 second sound bite.
Besides that this is an extreme example, I think we can still look at it to address the concerns that the EC is suppose to address. Is it theoretically possible that someone could get destroyed in the PV and still win the EV? Sure, but that’s exceedingly unlikely to happen. So let’s suppose some interests of these people.
Let’s assume Joe knows that he’s going to win overwhelmingly in state C because his ideals fit well with theirs. If he JUST sticks to those and makes no effort to address the issues of the minority at all, he has no chance of winning. However, if he adjusts his platform a bit to accomodate some of the prevailing views in the other states, he might lose some votes in State C, but he’d gain some in states A and B. IOW, a PV means he can JUST follow whatever the prevailing views are and be guaranteed a win, but EC means he HAS to make some concessions to the minority or he’ll lose.
I think the racism point is a little bit out of touch for us these days, so let’s take a popular issue. Let’s say the Republicans nominate Mr. Ultra-Conservative and the Democrats nominate Mr. Super-Socialist, let’s also say that in a flat popular vote, Mr. Super Socialist wins 52-48 (assuming no third party). Based on that, he needs to make no concessions AT ALL to the 48% who didn’t vote for him, and in fact, he probably represents even fewer than those 52% because most of the people are in the middle, so he probably only reasonably well represents about a quarter of the population, represents another half so-so, and the other quarter is just screwed. Now, if we take the EC into consideration, he HAS to take some opposing views into perspective, and thus has to move closer to the middle to represent them. So now, he is more likely to represent the middle half fairly well, and the other quarters on either side okay, which means more people are represented better. As such, instead of entirely representing the majority and ignoring the minority, he now mostly represents the majority and somewhat represents the minority.
Imagine this, if you will. Right now it looks like the democrats are in the majority, with a popular vote, they only have to secure the votes of democrats, which means they nominate the candidate that will appeal to the most democrats. Chances are, that candidate will be noticeably left of the country as a whole. Same thing would occur with a republican candidate, except he’d probably be about the same to the right. That means, if you’re on the minority, your views are ignored. However, the EC forces them to look issues that they could otherwise ignore, or adjust their position in such a way as to try to gain those votes in those areas. Overall, I think that is what keeps the politicians in this “race to the middle” and I think that is decidedly better than constantly switching back and forth between the extremes, even if I may happen to agree with one extreme more than the other.
Unlikely yes, but it’s happened. Possibly because voters who could have tipped the scale stayed home, feeling that their vote wouldn’t matter in their state. Possibly for some other reason. Your example is somewhat reliant on the two-party system, which I think we’d move away from in a popular vote environment – all but assured with the addition of measures such as approval voting.
It is, indeed, a layered discussion with few good alternatives given the current state of politics. Some kind of reform is long overdue, though. The system may have worked flawlessly in the framers’ eyes, but it’s time for a tune up, IMO.
A multi-party system (more than two parties) is not necessarily the panacea I think many suspect it would be. I am not saying they are bad, as such, but they definitely come with their own unique issues.
One particular and perverse issue is you can get a minority rule. IIRC this used to be the case in Israel (might still be…been awhile since I read about it). Say two parties have 45% of the government each and a third party has 10%. The two main parties, being each other’s biggest rival, rarely can cooperate. In order to get their legislation through they then need to suck-up to that 10%. As a result the 10% wield a power out of all proportion to their actual support among the populace. Makes for some wonky and not very good politics.
I dunno, I think things might go better in the UK if the LibDems got to be the tail wagging the dog.
In any case, the “minority rule” problem only arises in parliamentary systems, not in American-style separation-of-powers systems where the executive has an electoral mandate independent of the legislature.
Fair enough, and I admit that my example is based on the two party system, but I wanted to keep it simple. However, I disagree that we’d necessarily move away from the two-party system. If anything, I think it would solidify the two party system even more.
AFAIK, and I’ll admit I’m not hugely well read on the subject, the main reason behind the dominance of the two party system isn’t an artifact of PV vs. EC, but rather the prevailing idea that voting for someone that has no chance of winning is tantamount to throwing your vote away. In a PV system, anyone who has a chance to win will necessarily be affected equally no matter where you vote, thus, many people who might otherwise vote for Barr or Nader or Perot or whoever will instead choose the candidate they dislike least between Obama and McCain. In an EC system, a libertarian in Texas or a Green in New York (or vice versa, it doesn’t matter) isn’t as compelled to vote for the lesser of two evils and, instead, can vote entirely on his principles.
I can speak to this from my own personal experience. I was quite convinced that Virginia would go red in 2004, so I had no issue at all voting third party and even trying to convince other people to do so as well. This year, it’s a lot closer, and I’m feeling a lot more weight on my decision as to whether to vote for the principles I believe in, or select whom I feel is the lesser of two evils. Sure, there are always the third party voters who don’t care and will always do that, but I think there are plenty like me who are trying to effect the most positive change in this country and that’s a delicate balance between minimizing damage from who WILL get elected and maximizing the influence of those who I believe are the most correct. I think if every vote in every district had the weight on it that mine did, I think more third party voters would break toward the minimizing damage aspect (since many of them feel that, in a place like Texas or New York, that aspect is negligible) and third parties would consequently have many fewer votes and much less influence.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it could probably use some work, but I don’t think scrapping the system is the answer.
I also realistically don’t think that forcing or asking states to reward votes proportionally will happen anytime soon because states lose a lot of influence like that, like the Ohio example where winning it now is worth 20 votes, but winning it proportionally it’s only worth 4, so candidates would spend less time in places like that. In fact, it woudl make it worse, because then rather than looking at, say plains states or north east states, they’d look at states where, based upon the electoral votes and where the current polls are, they’d go to the places where a small shift in the polls could mean a few extra points.
For example, if Ohio is split 60-40 (for 12 and 8 votes respectively), then in order for either candidate to gain a vote, they’d need to gain at least 2.5% of the vote to get to 62.5% to round to 13 and 7 or 42.5% to round to 11-9. Chances are, Ohio would be ignored. OTOH, if it’s split 62-38, then only 0.5% of the vote means another electoral vote, and they’d probably campaign heavily there. IOW, rather than going to swing states as they do now, which is a little silly, they’d be going to the states that have the mathematically anamolies and it would be even more arbitrary.
It gets worse, let’s imagine two states with few electoral votes, but one has an even number and one has an odd number (let’s choose Wyoming and Maine), let’s also say that they’re very close races running at 51-49. With this system, Maine HAS to be ignored, because the margin of victory would have to be huge to get any result but a 2-2 split (at least 62.5 to get 3 votes), but Wyoming is now important because that small margin means the difference between that extra vote. So, counter-intuitively, even though both states are hotly contested in the popular vote, by forcing the electoral votes to be assigned proportionally based on the popular vote, it actually completely marginalizes that state. Thus, where Maine and Wyoming, in this hypothetical situational, should both be battle ground states, one gets way over represented and one gets marginalized based on the arbitrary resolution of the number of electors we have.
I think the only reasonable revision would be to get rid of the extra 2 votes per state. Either give an elector based purely their representation, keep the total number of electors and redistribute accordingly, or select an entirely new number of electors and distribute according to that. This would remove some of the say that some of the smaller states have and give some more to some of the larger ones, but it would generally keep the general idea of the system in place. I wonder how that would effect some past elections (like 2000) and if it would then agree with the popular vote.
That’s what I thought was the original intent. Would it really be overriding the will of the electorate if they were voting for representatives? Frankly, I think the issues faced by a modern POTUS are far too complicated for most citizens to study in depth. (I’m not saying they are too complicated to understand.) I’d feel more comfortable electing fair-minded, reasonable representatives from all around the country to vet the available presidential candidates. Can anyone really say that the general population has a firm grasp of what the POTUS does, let alone the specific issues he/she would face on the job? These respresentatives don’t have to be politicians themselves, just people who can take the time to study the issues and the candidates, and represent the wants/needs of their locality.
Again, this is just not so. Historically, Lincoln won without Southern support. Theortically, a candidate could gain bare majorities in the 11 most populous states and become President without receiving a single vote in the other 48 states. Presently, the election occurs not throughout the nation but only in the swing states. Whoever wins there wins the White House.
So please, stop repeating this wrongheaded claim. If you want candidates to seek everyone’s support then you have to give them an incentive to do so: by ensuring that every individual vote will effect the outcome. A popular vote would not only do so but ensure that every vote counted equally.
Using Lincoln’s election doesn’t really prove anything. The point isn’t that the Electoral College adds a layer of protection against the tyrannical majority, not a guarantee against it. In fact, if anything, his election proves that the need for an Electoral College is necessary and perhaps wasn’t strong enough because it showed that that overwhelming majority of the North really didn’t have to make any concessions to the South at all.
And further, what exactly is so wrong about swing states deciding elections anyway? I get that it irritates people that “my state is solid red/blue, so my vote means nothing”, but at the same time, if an overwhelming majority from your state feels a certain way, maybe the prevailing issues for your region are handled by a particular candidate and don’t necessarily need to be addressed. Meanwhile, a region that is hotly contested quite possibly means that there are pressing issues.
You’re missing the point. Yes, every vote is important, but it’s just as important to make sure that the minority aren’t completely ignored. A simple majority or plurality means that you pick whatever platform will get you the most votes and you do that, and if most of the people want something that helps them but hurts the rest, there’s no stopping that. The electoral college provides some buffer against that.
If we went to the popular vote, I imagine that most candidates would spend most of their time at the top 30-40 or so cities in the country and address their concerns, that leaves a non-insignificant portion of the rest of the country pretty much SOL. With EC you at least have to give some consideration to those states or you risk losing a lot of electoral votes.
A straight democracy is not what we have, nor do I think it’s what we should have.
I might be okay with that as well, but I’m not sure how it would really work in this day and age. What if I vote for someone who seems to fit my views, but ends up voting completely differently in a very obvious way. Sadly, I think most cases would boil down to them just saying “I’m going to vote for this guy, so vote for me” and not “I’m an ethical person with these beliefs” and such and such. Further, you’re a large step toward a parliamentary system there, no? I think people like the idea that we get to vote directly for our country’s top political office and not seperated by many layers; I think it’s part of what keeps interest in politics in this country as high as it is.
meh, keep it, just make people tax rates based off of their relative voting power…I mean we started a revolution in this country (um sort of) over this very topic, because I live in a high pop area I get less of a voice than some redneck in Arkansas? really?
and the tyranny of the big states? over what? this is a presidential election we dont get to vote on federal lvl law making.
the real reason I think this thing is going to be around forever is because the dems and the repubs know that it would open the floodgates on independents everywhere. it would represent a huge loss of control when voters are suddenly given a true choice in voting.
Not following you at all. Why would you conclude that? Quite the contrary, I am saying that the state-specific objectives for the smaller states are best served by the EC. Mathematically, it’s inarguable. I was responding to this:
My answer then, and now, is no, I don’t agree. “Issues that affect everyone” don’t affect everyone the same way. Folks in Wyoming might have quite different opinion on Federal taxes than those in New York, as an example.
Because we are a nation built up of states, not a nation that just happens to have been divided into states. You may wish that weren’t so, but it is. Some of us want to keep government as local as possible. Abolishing the EC would have the opposite effect.
I hadn’t concluded anything. I see what you are saying now.
Issues affect people in different ways. People have different opinions. So what? Why does that mean some people deserve more voting power than others?
And I would be interested in the actual argument explaining how people in Wyoming are best served by an electoral system that encourages candidates to ignore them.
If the point isn’t that the EC forces candidates to seek broad support then people should stop saying so.
Who are you, I, or someone’s neighbors to tell them which issues should decide your vote?
“The Electoral College means that you pick whatever platform will get you the most votes where you need them and you do that, and if those people want something that helps them but hurts the rest, there’s no stopping that.”
In short, the same argument can be made against any electoral system. No one is saying that a straight vote would be perfect. Only better than the other options.
No offense but I think practical experience is a more reliable guide than your imagination. There are statewide popular vote races throughout the land. Here in Pennsylvania candidates for governor don’t ignore the “T” between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. When I lived in outstate Michigan (outside of metro Detroit, that is) candidates for governor still appealed to us. And for a simple reason: if everyone everywhere has an equal say then it makes sense to try to appeal to people everywhere.