End Run Around Electoral College

Great Debates
81

I thought this compact idea was already discussed.

In any case, first off you have to start with the idea that the EC is a problem that needs solving. This is not obviously true. Citing the 2000 election is a weak example. The nation was basically tied. If we counted votes one way, one fellow won, if we had counted another way, the other guy would have won.

The EC does what it is supposed to do. It gives a political advantage to the party that has the broadest support across the entire nation. In this way, it forces politics to the center.

That is a Good Thing.

82

[QUOTE=Monty]
I don’t think they campaign much in rural areas. Almost every time I hear “Let’s chuck the Electoral College” I also hear “We need to have our votes counted too” from the rural areas. Well, I’m waiting. Show me how that’ll happen if the EC’s gone.
[/QUOTE]

Surely you mean, “overcounted.”

83

I’m totally against the idea. What it would do is remove any incentive for the states to run honest elections. Let’s for a moment assume that state A runs scrupulously clean elections- there are no attempts to disenfranchise anybody, all the registrations are done by the book and everybody that registers gets to vote, the voting machines are well distributed, and there is a verifiable paper trail that can be used to audit the results. Now let’s take their evil neighbor, state B. State B has a crook running the election and wants to maximize the national totals for his candidate. No longer content to alter the results by a few percent to get to 51% and win his state’s electoral votes, now he’s going to up the ante. More irregularities in voter registrations being thrown out on technicalities or just not processed. More uneven distribution of voting machines. More taking advantage of the vulnerability of electronic paperless voting machines. More thugs indimidating people of the wrong ethnicity from voting.

Now State A sees their honest votes overwhelmed by the crooked votes coming in from State B. State A can either accept the fact that State B is stealing the elections, or State A can fight fire with fire and start to bastardize their own process. Now all of a sudden instead of a campaign of ideas, it’s a contest to see who can cheat better.

If you keep things as they are, the cheating is confined to a few states and it is possible for someone to win the election honestly. If you go to a popular vote, then forget ever having an honest election again.

84

BobLibDem, That’s why along with eliminating the EC, you also eliminiate state control of the Presidential elections (since the “states” aren’t really involved in selecting the President any more, why should they oversee the Presidential election). You have a national election board with national election officials (like I believe Canada has), who are responsible for regulating the elections, setting standards for voting equipment, deciding who gets put on the ballot, controling voter registration, counting the ballots and certiyfying the results, overseeing recounts, runoffs, etc. You have the National Election board report directly to the Congress, not the President and the Excecutive (who obviously has a conflict of interest), simillar to the GAO. You don’t have to worry about curropt election officials in any individual state because they are under the oversight of the National election Board (who are in turn under the scrutiny of the Congress and the nation as a whole). Would there still be instances of election fraud and corruption? Sure, but there would be a *better * chance to eliminate it using a fairly independent national election board, rather than relying on State "B’s corrupt political machine appartus to police itself

Of course , that would not be possible under this Compact system: the states have to police it themselves, since they have no authority under the Constitution to conduct a “national” election.

85

Mike H, if you have a national election board that runs an honest presidential election, you’d have my full support. I just don’t trust the states to keep it clean. Until there is a true national oversight, then I think we need the EC.

86

[QUOTE=scotandrsn]
True, Republicans more or less did away with Federalism in favor of Nationalism a century and a half ago. That made sense when too much respect for individaul States’ rights supported the then-very-recent institution of slavery.

We have had nearly 150 to view the results of Nationalism over Federalism, and I personally find Nationalism wanting. Too much power in the Presidency, too many decisions that affect us locally being decided thousands of miles away.

Suppose the UN charter was re-vamped to give it more power over the actions of the member countries. Would you consider yourself a World citizen first, and an American second?

Whether Federalism is alive and kicking is not the issue. The issue is whether it should be.
[/QUOTE]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you.

I don’t think the too-much-power-in-the-Presidency issue has been forwarded by Nationalism so much as by some individual office holders (from both parties) who did a great deal to increase it, and were allowed to (for reasons that escape me) by Congress.

Frankly, I find Democracy wanting at anything but the most local levels. My personal choice would be office-holders chosen by pure chance out of a pool of all literate, numerate citizens. Obviously that ain’t gonna happen.

But Federalism better than Nationalism? Why? Simply because Nationalism isn’t doing a magnificent job? What leads you to believe Federalism would do better? I don’t think these days that an individual state has sufficient homogeneity to be any more representative of my specific interests than the nation at large; I don’t think it would represent the vast majority of people any better, generally speaking. I think what it might mean would be highly polarized states - that folks would specifically move from one state to another in order to escape a place where a bare local majority had implemented policies they found abhorrent. You might very well end up with truly blue states vs. truly red states then. And heaven help us - what next - another civil war?

My point is, you have no basis for assuming Federalism is superior beyond your belief that different must be better, or at least as far as I know. I think the idea of institutionalized segregation still existing in the south is not a pleasant one, and I’d lay you very good odds that this would still be the case. Honestly, I think the national decisions tend to be considerably more moderate than the more local ones, although I can’t say that’s been the case since 2000. I dont’ know, though, what it is you want to be different. Maybe you would prefer a more extreme set of policies.

I don’t pretend to have the solid answers here. All I can tell you is that in my viewpoint, moving decisions to the state level would be very good for me here in NJ, but callous and brutal to most parts of the nation. I say that because in my lifetime at least, the National level decisions tend to fall in favor of more freedom and less government poking its nose into personal business such as sex, religion, or flag-waving. Of course, if lower taxes and less environmental/consumer protection are higher priorities than civil liberties, you’re probably right.

87

foolsguinea:

Well, Kansas does, or did, at least. (Then again, it happened before Kansas attained statehood, so maybe actual states don’t.)

88

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
I’m totally against the idea. What it would do is remove any incentive for the states to run honest elections. Let’s for a moment assume that state A runs scrupulously clean elections- there are no attempts to disenfranchise anybody, all the registrations are done by the book and everybody that registers gets to vote, the voting machines are well distributed, and there is a verifiable paper trail that can be used to audit the results. Now let’s take their evil neighbor, state B. State B has a crook running the election and wants to maximize the national totals for his candidate. No longer content to alter the results by a few percent to get to 51% and win his state’s electoral votes, now he’s going to up the ante. More irregularities in voter registrations being thrown out on technicalities or just not processed. More uneven distribution of voting machines. More taking advantage of the vulnerability of electronic paperless voting machines. More thugs indimidating people of the wrong ethnicity from voting.

Now State A sees their honest votes overwhelmed by the crooked votes coming in from State B. State A can either accept the fact that State B is stealing the elections, or State A can fight fire with fire and start to bastardize their own process. Now all of a sudden instead of a campaign of ideas, it’s a contest to see who can cheat better.

If you keep things as they are, the cheating is confined to a few states and it is possible for someone to win the election honestly. If you go to a popular vote, then forget ever having an honest election again.
[/QUOTE]
First of all, I am for this idea. I think there is a real problem here. I personally know people who did not bother to vote, because their vote doesn’t matter. To me, that’s a real problem.

Second, I think it’s a false assumption to claim that elections results cannot be made honest. Technology advances rapidly these days. 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?

89

[QUOTE=E-Sabbath]
This means, assuming limited time on the part of the politicans, the lower-population states will get much less attention than the higher population ones. Even in a ‘blue state’ like NY, there are more Republicans than in all of North Dakota. So why go there? The swing voters in ND are a miniscule percentage, and if you can grab more of the NY ones, who cares about the heartlands?
In short, it’d be great for the high population states, and sucky for the low-population states. Am I wrong here? A propaganda dollar spent in NY will just go further.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but N. Dakota is pretty much ignored now. Look, this isn’t saying, “Oh, the heartland states’ electors don’t count.” Under this, the effect of the electoral college would be nil.

Not much change for Missouri, which tends to vote for the same person as wins the whole thing, but a big difference to, say, Democrats in Mississippi or Republicans in Massachusetts. Their votes would count.

Am I sure it’s a good thing? No, not really.

First, small-party candidates are able to get a chunk of the popular vote in the current system, in states where the outcome is pretty much foregone. That can tell us something about the political climate.

Second, I’m not convinced that direct popular election of the President is such a hot idea. I don’t mean I like the current system; what we have now* is* popular election of the President, run through a twisted mathematical filter. Combined with the two-party system, we get a popularity contest for the title of Less Offensive of Two Hacks. The L.O.T.H. then claims that he is the most beloved man in America, & that he has a mandate greater than anyone else in the government; never mind that constitutionally he’s the only person who is voted for nationwide, so there’s no basis for comparison (& after a close vote, it’s often more accurate that he’s the most hated man in American politics). Anyway, the President becomes a “consul of the people,” & overshadows Congress. This both encourages autocratic behavior & tends to draw voters’ eyes away from the equally important job of choosing responsible legislators. Maybe having the executive appointed more indirectly would get voters to start paying attention to Congressional races, & cut Presidential hubris back down to human size. I doubt it, but maybe.

90

I’m all for this idea, since it is only in the interest of the larger states such as California and New York. I disagree with the idea that states like Ohio or any state with large number of electorial votes wouldn’t be interested in the idea. The trouble is that as the number of electorial votes goes down the interest of each state will wane in direct proportion.

Robot Arm says the system only needs states with a total of over 270 votes for the system to work. I thought the idea was to divide up the votes and so the Gang of 270 would have a hard time mustering 162 votes for the top vote getter, while the rest goes to the loser. Meanwhile the rest of us could potentially be giving all our votes to the loser. Could this open things up more for a third party candidate?

91

[QUOTE=The Controvert]
Second, I think it’s a false assumption to claim that elections results cannot be made honest. Technology advances rapidly these days. Given the motivation, we could have a convenient and verifiable vote count by using computers.
[/QUOTE]

We COULD, just as we have virtually no errors in ATMS with millions upon millions of transactions weekly. But, the technology has been used to rig elections, not do them fairly. As long as election officials have incentive to cheat, we can’t assume that every tech advance is meant to make things more fair.

92

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
We COULD, just as we have virtually no errors in ATMS with millions upon millions of transactions weekly. But, the technology has been used to rig elections, not do them fairly. As long as election officials have incentive to cheat, we can’t assume that every tech advance is meant to make things more fair.
[/QUOTE]

You keep saying that, here and elsewhere. Do you have proof? Not suppositions, proof.

Just because Kerry didn’t win does not mean that he was cheated.

93

[QUOTE=Evil Captor]
No, that’s not true. The campaigns are national, not local. If there are 100,000 votes to be picked up nationally under the compact by supporting or opposing any position, the parties will go for it, no matter what state you’re in. The advertising may differ from state to state, but the POSITIONS of the parties on the issues, will be determined by where the NATION stands, not the people in a particular swing state. Big state, little state, no difference: your vote will matter.
[/QUOTE]
Um, I think you might want to go back and read what I wrote, and what it was in response to. You’re countering something, but it’s not what I was asserting. Actually, I’m not sure what you’re arguing.

94

This is a horrible idea!
While I wouldn’t cry if we went to a national popular vote, I like the EC because every 4 years we are reminded that we are a UNION of (theoretically) sovereign states. If enough states favor this charter, then why don’t they try to get a Constitutional Convention together to amend the Constitution to abolish the EC?

The problem is not with the EC but with how the states choose them.
I would favor either the House-Senate method (but you’d have to win more than 50% of the vote to get both Senate votes - otherwise they get split between the top two vote getters) or a proportional distribution of votes.

95

[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
We COULD, just as we have virtually no errors in ATMS with millions upon millions of transactions weekly. But, the technology has been used to rig elections, not do them fairly. As long as election officials have incentive to cheat, we can’t assume that every tech advance is meant to make things more fair.
[/QUOTE]
Again with the false assumptions. Rigged elections in the past is not proof that future elections cannot be made honest. Sir, I challenge your assertion that future elections will be rigged. I gave a scenario where it would not. Cheating happens when there is a low chance of getting caught. Stop with the hand-waving generalizations already. I challenge you to backup your claim… how exactly would someone realistically rig an election without being caught if technology made the election 100% verifiable?

96

[QUOTE=Monty]
I don’t think they campaign much in rural areas. Almost every time I hear “Let’s chuck the Electoral College” I also hear “We need to have our votes counted too” from the rural areas. Well, I’m waiting. Show me how that’ll happen if the EC’s gone.
[/QUOTE]
What, do they think the voting machines in rural precincts will be rigged? I don’t get what you’re asking here.

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.

97

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Well, that’s what it’s designed to do, right? It’s designed to ensure that the candidates are not necessarily elected according to the popular vote.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, at a time when they didn’t like electing anybody at the national level by popular vote.

98

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
you have to start with the idea that the EC is a problem that needs solving. This is not obviously true. Citing the 2000 election is a weak example. The nation was basically tied. If we counted votes one way, one fellow won, if we had counted another way, the other guy would have won.
[/quote]
The nation was not any more ‘basically tied’ in 2000 than it was in 1976, or 1968, or 1948, and a good deal less so than it was in 1960.

Statistically, a margin of 500,000 votes out of 100 million is a statistically significant margin of error. By a mile or two. So a 500K margin doesn’t reflect a chance outcome.

The only way you can say “If we counted votes one way, one fellow won, if we had counted another way, the other guy would have won” is if one way is the popular vote, and the other way is the EC. Which is exactly what makes 2000 a strong example.

Who says that’s what the EC is ‘supposed to do’? Find that in the Federalist Papers.

And what’s your evidence that it forces politics to the center? I don’t see it.

99

[QUOTE=JThunder]
Well, that’s what it’s designed to do, right? It’s designed to ensure that the candidates are not necessarily elected according to the popular vote.
[/QUOTE]
Except the EC was not designed. It evolved. (And badly.)

Hm. But there is no incentive for those who benefit from the voting system to keep the system above-board. Corruption pays. We look at the scrupulous care in banking, & think we can apply that standard of transparency & honesty to voting. But voting is not banking; voting is war.

Let me say that again: Voting is not banking. Voting is War. It is war, sublimated into non-violent means, to gain political power & prestige, or even to change the country you live in. Naturally, where they see the other party as evil (as does, say, the Pro-Life movement) smart politicians, with the best intentions, will always cheat, by whatever means practical, to win. Foolish politicians play by the rules, and lose.

Is BobLibDem right, that the EC inhibits voter fraud? Maybe. But the winner-take-all rules most states use now mean that it only takes a little bit of fraud to succeed. So Bob’s point appears backwards; fraud is small-scale because it only takes a little bit. That tiny bit of fraud now may be as effective as large-scale fraud in an alternate system. Maybe abolishing the EC would force reform. Or, maybe not. The expectations of the EC may, as Bob says, inhibit some fraud. Not that that saved John Kerry’s campaign, if reports from Ohio are to be believed.

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.

100

[QUOTE=SaintCad]
This is a horrible idea!
While I wouldn’t cry if we went to a national popular vote, I like the EC because every 4 years we are reminded that we are a UNION of (theoretically) sovereign states. If enough states favor this charter, then why don’t they try to get a Constitutional Convention together to amend the Constitution to abolish the EC?

The problem is not with the EC but with how the states choose them.
I would favor either the House-Senate method (but you’d have to win more than 50% of the vote to get both Senate votes - otherwise they get split between the top two vote getters) or a proportional distribution of votes.
[/QUOTE]
Actually, I agree with this post.