# End Run Around Electoral College **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 9, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116 "2006-06-09T20:19:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/101 "2006-06-14T19:28:38Z")
[QUOTE=foolsguinea] Really, what we need is to recognize that voting is war, will always be war, & prosecute it with all the seriousness of war. But that’s another thread. [/QUOTE] Yeah, I’m taking back that sentence. What I should say instead is the following: We need to recognize & be prepared for the fact that our opponents may see elections as a kind of war, & feel _morally obligated_ to cheat. And, if we have the understanding & humility to realize that honesty in voting is better, we need to be unafraid to prosecute their crimes with as much righteous determination as they had in committing them. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/102 "2006-06-14T22:04:42Z")
…and we’re still asserting that there is widespread cheating going on. I’m still waiting for some legitimate (not anecdotal, factual) substantiation about this. I mean, if it happened I’m sure that, say, the Federal Election Commission, or maybe the election commissions of at least one of the states would be able to back you up, right? Right? I repeat: just because your candidate lost doesn’t mean he/she was cheated. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/103 "2006-06-14T22:54:08Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] …and we’re still asserting that there is widespread cheating going on. I’m still waiting for some legitimate (not anecdotal, factual) substantiation about this. I mean, if it happened I’m sure that, say, the Federal Election Commission, or maybe the election commissions of at least one of the states would be able to back you up, right? Right? I repeat: just because your candidate lost doesn’t mean he/she was cheated. [/QUOTE] Oh, please, more of this “we wuz never convicted so we’re not criminals” stuff. [Here’s the sort of stuff that has people worried:](http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/14100465.htm) > [@](#): > > But the anomalies were real. Many have been documented. They kept thousands in swing states from voting, and prevented thousands of ballots from being counted. > > Not incidentally, most of the 2004 anomalies benefited one party. > > What stands out in the analysis of 2004 voting practices in the critical state of Ohio, says Columbus State Community College professor Bob Fitrakis, ``is the asymmetrical nature of the anomalies. Virtually every single anomaly tends to favor Bush, just overwhelmingly.‘’ Yeah, they weren’t able to convict anybody, but all the “anomalies” just happened to favor Bush. More conservative bullshit. When you guys gonna stop backing theieves and criminals? ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/104 "2006-06-14T23:12:43Z")
[QUOTE=Evil Captor] Yeah, they weren’t able to convict anybody, but all the “anomalies” just happened to favor Bush. More conservative bullshit. When you guys gonna stop backing theieves and criminals? [/QUOTE] I’m not backing Bush, blowhard. I am, however, sick of the “we didn’t win so we must have been cheated” mentality that some of you seem to have. If Kerry beat Bush, prove it. Frankly, since I voted for Kerry I’d like to see some proof, as that would give me more ammunition for my upcoming January 20, 2009 at 12:01 p.m. post. That doesn’t mean that I’m willing to let disingenuous assertions go by unchallenged. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/105 "2006-06-14T23:33:33Z")
How did the Electoral College “evolve?” So far, the only difference between the EC today and originally is that the District of Columbia has Electors. Perhaps I’m missing another minor one. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/106 "2006-06-14T23:36:30Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] I’m not backing Bush, blowhard. I am, however, sick of the “we didn’t win so we must have been cheated” mentality that some of you seem to have. If Kerry beat Bush, prove it. Frankly, since I voted for Kerry I’d like to see some proof, as that would give me more ammunition for my upcoming January 20, 2009 at 12:01 p.m. post. That doesn’t mean that I’m willing to let disingenuous assertions go by unchallenged. [/QUOTE] Legal proof of vote rigging can be hard to come by, because the standards are very high and when your party is in control of the voting machinery, as the Repubs were in Florida and Ohio, it’s very easy to hide what you’re doing, and even easier to conceal responsibility for it. But simple, logical, practical proof is easily obtained. Check out that story I linked to. Or not. I bet you also think O.J. didn’t kill his wife. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [June 15, 2006, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/107 "2006-06-15T01:50:46Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] …and we’re still asserting that there is widespread cheating going on. I’m still waiting for some legitimate (not anecdotal, factual) substantiation about this. [/quote] How about the [purging of voting rolls of the felons who weren’t](http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=122&row=1), in Florida in 2000? > [@](#): > > I mean, if it happened I’m sure that, say, the Federal Election Commission, or maybe the election commissions of at least one of the states would be able to back you up, right? Right? The FEC is the most toothless of tigers; the FL government was and is pretty much owned by Jeb and the GOP. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/108 "2006-06-16T00:53:30Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] I’m not backing Bush, blowhard. I am, however, sick of the “we didn’t win so we must have been cheated” mentality that some of you seem to have. If Kerry beat Bush, prove it. Frankly, since I voted for Kerry I’d like to see some proof, as that would give me more ammunition for my upcoming January 20, 2009 at 12:01 p.m. post. That doesn’t mean that I’m willing to let disingenuous assertions go by unchallenged. [/QUOTE] What do you think of the recent Kennedy article regarding the election? Do you think the 2004 election in Ohio was conducted fairly or not? What of the Native American voters that drove hundreds of miles to cast blank ballots? January 20, 2009 at 12:01 pm I will raise a glass at the same time as you. Then listen to President Gore’s speech. Let’s hope we live that long. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/109 "2006-06-16T20:41:42Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] What do you think of the recent Kennedy article regarding the election? [quote] I don’t have an opinion. I never saw it. > [@](#): > > Do you think the 2004 election in Ohio was conducted fairly or not? Barring proof, yes. Again, supposition and opinion do not constitute evidence. I want to see evidence of vote rigging. I want to see the program and how it electronically fixed the results. Let me ask you something… why the focus on Ohio? Ohio wasn’t the only swing state. Just because it came down to Ohio doesn’t mean that the election wasn’t decided somewhere else. Where’s the focus on other places? It’s almost as if you’re ignoring the results of the 49 other states and focusing in on a few commonly occurring “abnormalities” as the extent of the alleged cheating. If the cheating is endemic surely you’d have examples elsewhere, right? > [@](#): > > What of the Native American voters that drove hundreds of miles to cast blank ballots? What of them? Can you prove that they were disenfranchised intentionally? I ask because there were surely thousands, if not millions, in this country that were disenfranchised due to clerical error, electronic error, whatever. It happens in every election and it always has. Does that mean that every election has been rigged? You need a lot more than anecdote to prove cheating. Emotion is not the same as fact. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [June 16, 2006, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/110 "2006-06-16T22:30:50Z")
**Airman** , I can tell you as a programmer that it would be very easy to write election machine software that threw, say, one in twenty votes to one party or another and then overwrite itself with an un"loaded" program at the end of the day. I wouldn’t throw an election for $100000, but I’m willing to bet there’s a programmer or six out there who would be. Proof isn’t ever going to happen if that’s what’s going on. Similarly, how the hell do you expect to ever prove motive for various disenfranchised voters? Do you think there’s Snidely Whiplash in the background, twirling his mustache and keeping a detailed diary of exactly what is done? I have news for you; ain’t no such thing. What we DO have is a number of disenfranchised voters in a number of different states, and distributed fairly heavily in favor of one party. And we have the head of Diebold swearing to deliver Ohio to Bush in the election. No, we don’t _know_. We’ll \*never \* know, unless someone gets moral and decides to rat (assuming anything DID happen). This is why it’s so amazing to me that any state or jurisdiction was willing to purchase voting machines without a paper trail. It simply makes no sense to me; are people so ignorant that they can’t conceive of data being entered into a computer system and being altered? In anycase, we need desperately to fix this. Because there’s nothing better suited to making voter fraud on a massive scale possible than having recordless electronics registering the votes. I don’t know if there was any fraud in the 2004 election. What I DO know is that the morals demonstrated by certain members of the current administration - cough-Rove-cough - make me certain that there wouldn’t be any hesitation in TRYING. If caught, the penalty is huge, of course. But then, he’s already gotten away with outing a CIA agent - an act clearly against the law. And the administration has gotten away with illegal wire taps on American citizens - also clearly illegal. No voting machines without a paper record. That should be the rallying cry for every honest voter in the country. At the moment, the Republicans are the likliest suspects, but that doesn’t preclude some rogue Democrat from doing the same sort of thing in the future. ---
**Author:** ![DonutSprinkle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@DonutSprinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DonutSprinkle)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/111 "2006-06-17T04:24:07Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] **Airman** , I can tell you as a programmer that it would be very easy to write election machine software that threw, say, one in twenty votes to one party or another [/QUOTE] And it’s just as easy to “find” boxes full of paper ballots, and “unfind” others. And just as hard to prove fraud. [QUOTE=Oy!] Proof isn’t ever going to happen if that’s what’s going on. [/QUOTE] Very convenient. [QUOTE=Oy!] This is why it’s so amazing to me that any state or jurisdiction was willing to purchase voting machines without a paper trail. [/QUOTE] I’ll agree with you there. But paper trails are subject to fraud too. [QUOTE=Oy!] What I DO know is that the morals demonstrated by certain members of the current administration - cough-Rove-cough - [/QUOTE] You must have missed the recent news. [QUOTE=Oy!] make me certain that there wouldn’t be any hesitation in TRYING. If caught, the penalty is huge, of course. But then, he’s already gotten away with outing a CIA agent [/QUOTE] Just not true. Sorry. There was not “outing.” [QUOTE=Oy!] - an act clearly against the law. [/QUOTE] This part’s not any more true. [QUOTE=Oy!] And the administration has gotten away with illegal wire taps on American citizens - also clearly illegal. [/QUOTE] Whatever is going on there, the debate is on the legality. My opinion is that what is going on is perfectly legal, if unpleasant. But that’s just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 17, 2006, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/112 "2006-06-17T13:12:48Z")
[QUOTE=Oy!] This is why it’s so amazing to me that any state or jurisdiction was willing to purchase voting machines without a paper trail. It simply makes no sense to me; are people so ignorant that they can’t conceive of data being entered into a computer system and being altered? [/QUOTE] It’s hardly amazing when one considers that the _intent_ of these officials is to run a rigged election. Airman, I’ll never convince you if you insist on courtroom-worthy proof. But Ohio is the focus because this state ran the most blatantly rigged election in 2004. Recall Blackwell’s ruling that registration forms must be on certain weight paper, a requirement that clearly is in violation of the Voting Rights Act. Recall how the wait in black precincts was in some cases hours due to deliberate shorting of voting machines in those areas. When the person running the election is in the Bush campaign and the guys making the voting machines have pleged to produce a Bush victory, it doesn’t take a hounddog to smell a rat. I would like you to read the [Kennedy article.](http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/10432334/was_the_2004_election_stolen) > [@](#): > > In what may be the single most astounding fact from the election, one in every four Ohio citizens who registered to vote in 2004 showed up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the rolls, thanks to GOP efforts to stem the unprecedented flood of Democrats eager to cast ballots. And that doesn?t even take into account the troubling evidence of outright fraud, which indicates that upwards of 80,000 votes for Kerry were counted instead for Bush. That alone is a swing of more than 160,000 votes – enough to have put John Kerry in the White House. > > … > > Frustrated by his party’s failure to follow up on the widespread evidence of voter intimidation and fraud, Conyers and the committee’s minority staff held public hearings in Ohio, where they looked into more than 50,000 complaints from voters. In January 2005, Conyers issued a detailed report that outlined ‘‘massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio.’’ The problems, the report concludes, were ‘‘caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.’’ I’d cut and paste more chilling quotes but we don’t want to exceed fair use of copyrighted material. Please read for yourself and open your mind to the possibility that the election was rigged. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/113 "2006-06-18T01:16:11Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] How did the Electoral College “evolve?” So far, the only difference between the EC today and originally is that the District of Columbia has Electors. Perhaps I’m missing another minor one. [/QUOTE] Well, there are 37 more states than then, too. 🙂 Of course, what is meant is that rather than being the intended wise counselors chosen to select the best President, it has become a collection of loyal party hacks chosen for their allegiance to their party and a way to recognize selected campaign workers and minor dignitaries. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/114 "2006-06-18T14:24:49Z")
Apparently, that’s not working out as well as the parties choosing the hacks hope. After all, there’ve been a few “faithless Electors” over the years. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [June 18, 2006, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/115 "2006-06-18T14:27:24Z")
[QUOTE=RTFirefly] I also notice that you’re skipping on past my “If the President was elected by direct popular vote, small states would just have to fall back on their tremendous overrepresentation in the U.S. Senate in order to get their voices heard” comment. [/QUOTE] The President isn’t the venue for “having voices heard.” That venue is the Congress and there are two chambers for hearing voices (feel free to insert obvious joke). ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [June 20, 2006, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/116 "2006-06-20T01:52:55Z")
I think that instead of attacking each other, it might be more productive to attack the problem. The point was raised that politicians apparently love to rig elections. How might this problem be solved? I mean permanently solved. It’s cheap to take pictures these days. What if we take a picture of every voter in front of the official voting portrait of their chosen candidate? The voter gets an official printed copy of this picture to keep. Maybe I’m not smart enough to figure out how those tricky crooked politicians are gonna get away with cheating, but I honestly don’t think people would attempt to cheat if there is a good chance of being caught. Am I wrong? If they try to pull that business with the blank ballots from the Native Americans, the scam is revealed as soon as one of those official printed copies turns up. If anyone believes an election is rigged, they are welcome to verify as many random ballots as it takes to convince them otherwise. Suppose nobody could find a false vote. No news reporter, no average Joe, no curious math professor, no cranky senior citizen with entirely too much time on their hands. Would you still believe such an election was rigged if your candidate loses? [QUOTE=The Controvert] Given the motivation, we could have a convenient and verifiable vote count by using computers. Suppose you could check votes online. As soon as the election is over, you check any of the millions of votes that were cast and you could not dispute any of them. If you were to dispute a particular vote, we could find the person who cast the ballot and they could check it online and tell you if it was correct. If someone attempts to lie about their vote, we have video proof of them casting their ballot. If you want to check if your vote was tampered with, it’s as easy as visiting a web site. How would you rig the results without a huge risk of being caught? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/117 "2006-07-01T01:08:50Z")
[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF] If Kerry beat Bush, prove it. [/QUOTE] Well, since the election system is so carelessly organized, it’s difficult to verify much. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/118 "2006-07-01T02:01:03Z")
[QUOTE=Monty] The President isn’t the venue for “having voices heard.” That venue is the Congress and there are two chambers for hearing voices (feel free to insert obvious joke). [/QUOTE] Which seems a sufficient answer to what you said awhile back: > [@](#): > > If we were to abandon the Electoral College, why would the candidates even bother with campaigning in the rural areas. Guess it isn’t that important that the President campaign in rural areas after all. Thanks for clearing this up. ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2006, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/119 "2006-07-01T17:47:46Z")
I don’t check the SDMB as often as I used to and I only noticed this thread just before I left for vacation. When I got back I decided against bumping it. Now that someone else has done so I’ll limit just limit myself to responding to a couple things. Maybe I’ll come back and address some of the historical angles later. [QUOTE=Freddy the Pig] I think this is an excellent idea. It’s the first proposed reform of the Electoral College in 200 years that might actually have a chance of passing. I’m pleased to note that I first proposed it on the Straight Dope on [November 16, 2004](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=287021&highlight=electoral+college). I think these guys cribbed the idea from my post! [/QUOTE] Ahem. I developed the idea of states assigning electors based on the nationwide vote right here in Great Debates years before your post in 2004. So far as I know, I was the first to look outside the box on this. I considered, and rejected the idea of an explicit interstate compact because of constitutional concerns along the lines of those suggested by **Monty**. I have wondered if my epiphany triggered the current movement. I sent out a few emails to anti-EC election organizations so it is possible. But I never received any response so I guess it’s doubtful. > [@](#): > > A state like Texas has a great deal of motivation, since it is in the same boat as California–ignored because it belongs safely to one party. I hope that Texans don’t oppose it just because, by blind happenstance, the EC favored their favorite son in 2000; their ox could be the one gored next time. > > The minute this is perceived as an effort by one party or the other to game the sytem to its advantage, it’s dead. Unless a big red-state like Texas, Virginia, or Georgia gets behind it, it probably won’t go anywhere. Moving to a popular vote is an inherently partisan move since the EC favors the GOP and looks to continue to do so. The “red states” tend to be less populous than the “blue states” and thus overrepresented by Electors. So long as Texas is controlled by the GOP it isn’t likely to adopt the idea even if most Texans approve. For the idea to work it has to be adopted by enough “blue” and “purple” states. Lets not forget that once a nationwide vote is being considered we have to consider the votes of Americans who are completely disenfranchised in presidential elections: those living in Puerto Rico and the other insular territories. The GOP can’t be excited about the prospect of a bunch more nonwhites getting the ballot particularly if it is the Dems who are pushing to enfranchise the islanders. ## We’ll see. I figure it’s an uphill climb though not as steep as the slope of amending the Constitution, of course. The drawbacks are that the Dems can’t get the federal government in on the scheme from the start which would give them a huge boost and also the fact that the “Compact” doesn’t take effect until the magic number of 270 Electors is reached. A state voting to lay its Electoral Votes on the line in the name of democracy no matter how the other states acted would be a powerful symbol and it would partially enfranchise the islanders immediately. [QUOTE=Stratocaster] Count me among the marginalized cranks, then. The purpose the EC served, and still serves, is to make sure that the individual interests of the states are not completely left to the national majority. If so, the outcome seems predictable. If Idaho and California have conflicting interests (just to focus on a subset), then to the extent that these two states affect the outcome, California wins. Every time. [/QUOTE] This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the question at hand. We aren’t proposing to replace the EC with a direct democracy where every decision is put to a majority vote. Instead policy will continue to be decided by political considerations. In a representative democracy it is not only how people feel but how strongly they feel. The Idahoans could well get their way if they feel very strongly about the conflicting interest and Californians do not. They can give up something in trade to molify the other side. By examining the political consideration more closely it is the EC which retards the political weight of the Idahoans in this example. Because right now it is basically all or nothing. You win all of Idaho’s Electoral Votes or you do not. And, since one party, the Democrats, have no realistic chance of earning those votes in the first place they are free to ignore the desires of Idahoans just as Republican presidents are free to ignore the wishes of millions of Californians ( Remember Bush turning a blind eye to his supporters in the energy business raping California in 2001? ) Even without that effect the fact is that the EC makes voter turnout less relevant. If 99.9% of Idahoans are energized to turn out and vote for or against a particular candidate their combined voice is no louder than if a mere 40% of the eligble voters bother to show up at the polls and with about half voting for or against the candidate. > [@](#): > > The moment California collectively feels taken for granted, it’ll become a swing state. ## Personally, I find this objectionable. Political parties are not our masters that we should kowtow to their wishes. They should have to respond to, and thus be responsible to, the electorate and not the other way around. Just my 2sense ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 3, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116/120 "2006-07-03T15:31:54Z")
[QUOTE=2sense] I considered, and rejected the idea of an explicit interstate compact because of constitutional concerns along the lines of those suggested by **Monty**. [/quote] The Supreme Court has historically been pretty friendly to interstate compacts. The [current construction](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=case&court=us&vol=434&invol=452) appears to be that compacts don’t require Congressional approval unless they’re “directed to the formation of any combination tending to the increase of political power in the States, which may encroach upon or interfere with the just supremacy of the United States”. Since states have explicit plenary power over the mode of choosing electors, it’s hard to see how this compact would encroach upon federal power. (Actually, I’m not sure this plan even rises to the level of an “interstate compact”, since it doesn’t seem to entail any interstate enforcement mechanism. It sounds more like a simple reciprocity law. But the authors describe it as an interstate compact on their web site, so I’ll take their word for it.) > [@](#): > > Moving to a popular vote is an inherently partisan move since the EC favors the GOP and looks to continue to do so. The “red states” tend to be less populous than the “blue states” and thus overrepresented by Electors. I don’t agree. It’s true that over-representation of small states favors the GOP; Bush carried 31 states with an average of 9.2 EV’s each in 2004, versus 20 states with an average of 12.6 EV’s for Kerry. This will persist as long as the GOP is popular in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, as they have been since the 1950’s. **However** , the more important distorting effect of the EC is the WTA feature, and that can favor either party, almost randomly, from one election to the next. A small shift in Ohio–one which certain members of this board insist would have taken place if the votes had been counted correctly–would have left Kerry the minority-vote EC winner in 2004. It’s probably true that there is a _perception_ that the EC favors the GOP, because of (a) the 2000 result; (b) the small-state feature; and (c) the fact that Republicans tend to like it better on ideological grounds as an artifact of federalism. This perception may be enough to doom this plan. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/end-run-around-electoral-college/360116.md?page=7)