Certainly the safe states have power. But the parties have already adjusted their agendas to lock them up for one side or the other. Their power is negative. Enough to get the parties to stay the course but not to get anything more. They don’t get positive changes like, for instance, Bush promising a Medicare prescription drug benefit (popular in Florida) or steel tariffs (WV,PA,OH) even though it makes things tougher in a safe state (rust belt MI). And, of course, it only gives them power over one party. California had no influence with Bush so he felt free to ignore it’s 2001 electricity crisis.
I’m hoping you know how to phrase it since, like I said, I don’t get it.
Resentment isn’t exactly limited to SD, you know. I’ve never been there but pretty much everyone I’ve met and talked politics with feels ignored, shortchanged, and resentful. And I live in a swing state. I don’t see how tinkering with the presidential election scheme is going to change that.
States can recount if they wish and sure you can sue those participating in the scheme to force a recount. The threshold is to deal with nonparticipating states that choose not to recount. However these moves turn out there will either be a clear winner or not.
Granted this isn’t the best solution. A constitutional amendment would be much cleaner.
Say you have the 3 states above comprising the country. The Federal government of this country decides that the new super duper flashy space center will be placed in one of these states. Most space scientists say the 10% state would be best.
However, all states want it…so who gets it? The 60% state. Their citizens want it and will vote for it there or their reps in the congress will vote for it there.
I understand what you are saying…but by the mathematical definition of power…a safe state has power. Just because a thing has power doesn’t mean it will win…it just means they have more influence. They can still lose.
What you are saying is that in order to exercise that power they are limited to a choice of the lesser of 2 evils. They could back a third candidate…one that is great for their state but not so much others but they will lose because the other states will not vote for their person. The state still has mathematical power…but they lost this time.
So…in trying to be able to get the lesser of 2 evil candidates to win…they support him. They are ‘safe’ for him. He knows the state won’t back his opponent because they like his opppoent less. He also knows they won’t desert him for someone else because he would then lose and the greater evil candidate will win.
I understand what you are saying and emphathise.
However…it is still POWER. They are influencing.
As for CA and George Bush…well…CA has much power but they lost this particular battle. Bush was the candidate they didn’t support and he knows this. Therefore, Bush probably wasn’t going to bend over backwards to help a state that supports his opponents. That’s what happens when you support the losing side.
However, CA still has power and can use it to help put in their choice next time.
Now, a smaller state has little power, even though they are ‘mathematically over represented’. They can just be ignored.
You keep viewing states as monolithic units. In a purely popular vote, they aren’t monolithic units. In fact, they basically don’t exist.
The population of Iowa is around 3 million. That’s about the same as the population of the San Francisco urban area. So Iowa is about as valuable to the election as San Francisco. Which is fair. But wait!, you say, San Francisco is just part of a larger state. That whole state is MORE important than Iowa. But so what? How does that in any way affect how valuable Iowa is or is not? And why do we even care about Iowa at all?
In a popular election, your vote (wherever you live, whatever state or city it is) means exactly as much as my vote. A candidate always gains exactly as much by influencing your vote as mine. Sure, “California” has more votes than “Iowa”. So California is more important! But “Calfornia” has fewer votes than “every state that is not California put together”. Oh noes! The point is, state boundaries just aren’t relevant any more. There are no swing states or blue states or red states or big states or small states, there are just 300 million voters.
This mathematical definition of “power” always comes up in discussions of the Electoral College. With “power” defined that way, the electoral college does indeed increase the voters’ power. The problem is, it’s a lousy definition. Calling it “voting power” makes it sound like it’s something that a voter would want to maximize, but really, it’s not. What’s important is results. I wanted Barack Obama to become President, and he did, and therefore I’m happy. If I had stayed home,
Barack Obama would still become President, so my vote didn’t actually sway the election. Why should I be upset that I didn’t sway the election? I got the result I wanted, after all.
A more sensible definition of a voter’s power would be the likelihood that that voter’s candidates or policies win the election. And under that definition, the Electoral College doesn’t actually increase anyone’s power, and on average decreases it, since there’s the chance that the candidate preferred by most people won’t get in (as happened in 2000).
OK, I just reread it but I’m still no closer to understanding. Under a popular vote every single potential vote can affect the outcome in the exact same way. How can they not all be equal?
Yes, the safe states do influence the election. I said so right there in the quote this is in response to. I’m not saying South Dakotans have no influence; I’m saying they could do better under a popular vote. Then it would matter to both parties how many individual votes they recieved there and not only if it might possibly swing from one party to the other.
Again you have lost sight of the fact that we are comparing the EC with a popular vote. Under the EC Bush could ignore the crisis because pissing off millions of potential supporters wouldn’t cost him a thing. CA was going to go Democratic in 2004. But if he knew that those millions of votes could mean the difference between being reelected or not…