I’m not convinced that this is a net benefit. For one, it effectively strengthens the importance of swing states and greatly weakens the votes of people who live in large states and support the “other” party.
It’s a different system. I’m not sure it’s a better one. It has, among other things, led to really terrible policies like the strengthening of farm subsidies based on the ordering of the primaries.
It seems like your argument amounts to “eliminating the electoral college will lead to populous states like New York and California getting a huge say in the election, while keeping it lets smaller, more rural states have a bigger voice.” But why should we favor rural states over populous ones? It seems to me that, in a vote of the People, the places with more people should have a bigger say.
As an Ohioan in a sparsely populated corner of the state, I say do away with the EC for a very selfish reason: By god, I’m tired of political calls.
Ohio gets hammered with ads and calls because it’s a swing state with a decent number of votes. Take away the EC and Ohio stops getting swamped, and the rest of you don’t get stuck with Ohio’s decisions. Win-win!
People like to forget that the US is actually composed of states, territories and protectorates.
The founders implemented two features to balance state and federal interests:
The Senate - Two Senators per State, regardless of size. Senators selected by the state legislators. The original intent was that the Senate represented state concerns at the federal level.
The Electoral College, whose Electors are elected by processes determined by the States, elect the President.
The House of Representatives was the body designed to represent the concerns of the citizens as a whole. Senators are now elected at large from their states, effectively removing the representation of state government in the federal government.
States are distinct entities, and removing the EC will render most of the states invisible.
Let’s just eliminate the vote, then, except for residents of California, Florida and New York.
I gave you the historical reasons for the EC. Is there now no longer a reason to allow the states some play at the federal level? The big loss was in the conversion of the Senate into popularly-elected body.
The states are different from each other - the larger states already carry larger, population proportionate weight, both in the House and in the EC.
Except that this EC issue has nothing to do with big vs. small, it has to do with swing vs. nonswing.
Under the current system, the value of each vote in Florida is HUGELY higher than the value of each vote in either California or Hawaii. California is bigger than Florida, and Hawaii is smaller. But because each is a “safe” democratic state, a swing of 10000 votes, or 1000 votes, or 100 votes, or even 10 votes in California or Hawaii is never going to matter one bit, but in Florida it might well decide the election.
Think about it this way: your “power” as a voter is the chance that your vote actually decides who is president… that is, if everything else had remained the same and you had changed your vote, a different candidate would have been elected. Now, obviously in a country with 300 million people, that number, if calculated, is microscopic for any single person. But it’s HUGELY larger for certain people in others, and that’s based not on big vs. small state, or rural vs. urban, but on swing vs. non-swing. If the election was strict popular vote, it would be equal for everyone (although I agree that the thought of a nationwide recount is a scary one).
Do you honestly think that the current system is anywhere near what the founders had in mind?
This is about balancing state and federal power - in ye olden times, state governments had direct representation in the Senate, and state governments decided how their electors selected the President.
That is still the way it works, and cannot be changed without a Constitutional amendment. The thing is, for the past century or so, pretty much every state has gone with a popular contest to decide the outcome of its electoral votes.
The original EC wasn’t their idea of a good system, either. It was put in not because everybody liked it, but because nobody disliked it enough to be able to come up with a less unpopular idea. There were several proposals, and the Electoral College was eventually unenthusiastically recommended.
America is also a nation of people and not just a mixed republic.
The point was not to have a Senator do the bidding of his state. They were supposed to be independent. It was hoped their indirect selection would produce high minded individuals who could rise above parochial concerns to serve the public interest. That’s why they served long six year terms and were paid by the federal government and not their states unlike the direct agents of the states in the Confederation Congress under the Articles of Confederation.
We nearly ended up with having a president chosen by Congress. The reason this was rejected seems to have been that the convention wanted a president to be eligible for multiple terms but also be independent of the Congress. Certainly there was plenty of wrangling over how much influence each state could expect over picking a president but I’m unaware of any attempt to strike a balance between state and federal authority in the process.
Not most. All states would be invisible under a popular vote. States aren’t people so they wouldn’t get a vote.
And now we are back to the common misconception of EC supporters I mentioned earlier. As I said, if all votes count then candidates are encouraged to seek support everywhere. Those three states hold just under 25% of our population. It would be a foolish candidate indeed who ignored 3/4 of the electorate.
I’ve already examined your “historical” reasons. I quote this because of an oddity. You make a distinction between the state government and the state residents in your complaints about direct election of Senators. How come you don’t do the same for the Electoral College? That is, the state governments have given up control of the electoral votes by having them decided by the state electorate. It would seem by your logic that all of the state governments have already abdicated their ability to balance their interests with the federal government via the presidential election. Yet you complain that abandoning the EC would do just that.
Some people like to forget that America is also a nation of people. You don’t mention the effect of the EC on individual Americans at all. Why not? Can you still frame your objections in a coherent manner while acknowledging that people living in a state are not some monolithic entity?
Again, the system requires a national recount (with states that didn’t sign up having no incentive to spend money or otherwise be bothered) if the preliminary result is right on the cusp of whatever you define as “a clear winner”.
But whatever the original EC was, it certainly was NOT the current “have a majority popular vote in each state, and that vote determines who gets ALL the EC votes from that state” (except for Maine and Nebraska) system, which has all sorts of terrible flaws, chief among them being that only residents of swing states matter (at least when combined with a two-party system, which the founders also didn’t anticipate).
Maybe if the EC worked the way the founders thought it would, that would be something different, but it doesn’t.
The constitution was (and is) a brilliant document, but let’s not fetishize it.
But it makes no sense to set it up that way since it doesn’t resolve the problem. If, OTOH, you do as I suggest and set it up so that either there is a clear winner or their is not then it would work. “Right on the Cusp of a Clear Winner” =/= “Clear Winner”. If the votes as tallied do not meet the criteria then there is no clear winner. Even if it is only a single vote short.
Really though, hopefully that would just be a stopgap. Presumably, as with the 26th Amendment, once it was fait accompli the Congress and states would quickly move to amend the Constitution to standardize the process. Then national recounts are no problem.
Assuming you mean votes that affect the clear/unclear standard and that Iowa finds and reports the votes to the FEC before the Electors vote then that would change the clear/unclear status of the leading candidate. If you mean votes that give one candidate more votes than another then nothing happens since neither candidate is a clear winner before or after. If the votes aren’t reported or found after the Electors vote, then nothing happens either.
The issue I see some people have with the EC is that some people in less populated states mathematically have a higher ‘vote’.
The problem with this is that they are confusing this mathematical number with voting power.
Voting ‘Power’ is a mathematically defined term which signifies the ability to change the results of the election if one were to change their vote.
Example:
Company has 3 board members with 60%, 30% and 10% shares respectively. Mathematically, the 60% guy has twice the votes as the 30% and 6 times the 10%. However, in terms of power it is 100%, 0% and 0%. That is the reality. The guy with 60% calls the shots because 60%>the 51% needed to win. So, the 30% guy doesn’t have half the influence of the 60% guy…he has NONE.
Another example same guys but with 49% 49% 2%. Mathematically, the 2 49% guys have much, much more weight than the 2% guy…but in reality they all have equal power…2 out of 3 wins.
Get it?
So…someone from North Dakota might be mathematically ‘overrepresented’ in the EC but have much less power. Someone from California might be very underrepresented mathematically but have mych higher power.
So, the question is…does the person from North Dakota have too much power relative to a person from California?
I don’t know…but I suspect that the person from North Dakota has less power. I base that theory on the fact that candidates don’t flock to ND to speak every election. Now, due to the quirks of how things are at the moment, certain states may seem to have more power like the ‘swing’ states…however the ‘solid’ states still have power because if they change their vote it would be huge. The fact that they don’t doesn’t mean they are powerless because the candidates know that they have the state on their side…but they had better KEEP it and keep that state happy.
Nobody does that for ND…not even the republicans who own the state.
In your call for ‘fairness’ do not confuse mathematical calculations with actual power. Power still resides with the big states but not as much as if the EC was dismantled. Dismantel the EC and you might as well have ND leave the union.
Why is that the question? Whatever the caclulation, a voter in ND has a different amount of voting power than one in California. Why is it important which person has more and which less? No matter what, they are unequal. It seems to me that the question should be, “What justification is there for this inequity?”
But the parties don’t have to keep people happy. When are people ever happy with a political party? In our 2 Party System all one party has to do is remain the lesser of 2 evils. They have no need to seek votes in safe states. Their general platform has a greater appeal to a large enough share of the state electorate that the other party isn’t competitive except in extraordinary circumstances.
Under the popular vote power wouldn’t reside with any state since states aren’t people so they wouldn’t get a vote. What would North Dakotans have to complain about having the same vote as every other American? Not to mention actually being courted by presidential candidates since their votes could affect the outcome?
Then how do you make it equal? Giving the person from California and the person from ND 1 vote may be mathematically equal but in terms of power the one from California dominates.
This is a very cynical quote. However, the party must still make sure that they are the lesser of 2 evils…hence the state has power.
Because their vote has much less power than the one from California. They would have every right to complain. However, most would not know how to phrase this feeling they have that while all votes are mathematically equal that they feel ignored and shortchanged. This, over time will breed resentment.
I know this…I was born and raised in ND (though I don’t live there now but in a major urban area. Many people there feel their issues have no importance and it is all CA, FL etc…and that is WITH the EC. Without it and over the course of generations they will not feel they live in the same country.
No. I mean let’s say we set the threshold at a million vote plurality. If one candidate has that much of a plurality, then his victory is considered “clear” so the states allocate their votes according to the “clear” winner and all is well.
Now, in 2012, the GOP candidate has a plurality of 1,000,001 votes, and the state signatories to this compact are ready to allocate their electoral votes to him.
Now, Iowa comes in and finds 2 uncounted votes for the DEM candidate, leaving our GOP friend with a 999.999 plurality, NOT a “clear” victory, and all of these states are free not to allocate their votes to him.
Chaos ensues. The Republican Party of New York claims that the 2 Iowa ballots are invalid and sues in Federal and State Court for New York to honor the compact and allocate the votes to the GOP candidate.
The DEMS in California demand that the state recognize those two votes and keep the DEM electors.
The court fast tracks these cases and resolves them in a week. Then Nome, AK reports 15 GOP votes while Key West, FL finds a thousand DEM votes. New lawsuits.
States are not monolithic voting blocs, and that is why your argument is flawed. The 60% state does not have 100% of the power, unless more than 84% of that state votes the same way. But any combination that represents over 50% of the population could do the same thing. If the 30% and 10% states have 100% support for something, all they need is 17% support from the third state.
