Why Electoral College, again?

[2sense]

@continuity eror

I’ve always been anti-electoral college as it stands now but I’ve got to say that AHunter3’s argument makes a lot of sense, even more than a straight popular vote. It would be fair to the people who live in states that always go one way (even Texas would have a few Kerry electors), give the smaller states a boost, and force candidates to campaign in more than the six or seven swing states.

I have already outlined the limitations of a proportional system in posts #33 and #35. ( Post numbers are listed in the top right corner of each post. ) Do you have any solutions to these difficulties? And why should smaller states get a boost? Don’t Americans living here in Penna deserve an equal vote as those living in Wyoming?

@DrDeth

All this debate on whether it’s fair or whether getting rid of it would disenfranchise more or less voters than the current system are moot. We cannot get a 2/3rd majority. MAYBE a bare majority and that’s it. Sorry, we are stuck with it until a Constitutional Convention, which I hope doesn’t happen in my lifetime.

At the bottom of post #22 I explain why this is not true. There is no need for constitutional convention or even constitutional amendment to move to a popular vote. Simple legislation at the federal level would get the ball rolling and even without Congress individual states can choose to assign their electoral votes to the national winner and not just the winner in that particular state.

@BobLibDem

I disagree. Colorado is normally safe GOP, but in play this year.

Irrelevant. What is at issue here is not how the state will vote but how that vote affects the campaign. ( Or rather, how it affects the political influence of Coloradans over the presidency as measured by the campaign effects. ) Sure, Kerry might get the most votes in Colorado but if so it won’t matter. If he is that popular then he will win enough votes in other states to gain a majority of electors no matter what happens in Colorado. Reagan won New Jersey twice. That didn’t make Jersey a battleground state or confer any of the extra electoral importance that comes from having votes likely to change the outcome. Colorado, under the unit rule, will not turn this election. However, that might change if it moved to a proportional allocation of electoral votes.

So yes, Colorado is in play this year. As such it has gathered a modicum of attention from the major candidates just to be safe. Has that attention lessened due to the ballot initiative? If so there would be an argument against the initiative but I have seen no evidence that this is true. What little I have heard about the response was that the initiative was piquing the interest of the major campaigns a bit.

[erislover]

@Marley23

Where I don’t like it is in the popular vote for President. That’s the only situation that conflicts with “one man, one vote” as far as I can see.

Except, just like in every other election you vote in, within a state your vote means exactly as much as everyone else’s.

[erislover]

@2sense

Unfortunately that’s not all, or even most, of the concern about the EC. In addition to other perversions of our electoral system the EC makes Americans unequal in three ways. That all of a state’s electoral power goes to the leading candidate leaving those who voted against this candidate unrepresented in the college is merely the first.

It isn’t one at all. That’s the states’ call. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the states, not the EC.

Between states people are unequal because there are fewer people per elector in the “smaller” states.

And fewer people per representative, as I’ve indicated. That’s our system of representation. It tends to overrepresent minorities, which in this case are smaller population states. You’ll note some methods like a Borda Count do the same thing, even without an Electoral College. There is simply no fair way to count. The EC isn’t less or more fair. It elects a representative based on the way people are represented. That makes sense to me. I don’t see the popular vote as a holy grail for myself, or the Green party, or Republicans, or whatever. I don’t personally believe it will select the best candidate, as I personally believe transferrable voting is the “best” voting system. But even if we went to that, we could still keep the EC and I’d still be fine with it.

And outside of the states there is no vote at all. Americans living in the insular territories are governed by a man they have no power to elect. So there are plenty of other problems.

Like Puerto Rico, which has been, as I recall, offerred their position and chose to remain a commonwealth? Like Cuba, which chose to go independent? Like the friend of my mom’s who lives in Switzerland but could get an absentee ballot? Oh… right. Damn that electoral college which has nothing to do with any of these things! Rally the troops!

The term refers to not just the electors and the constitutional rules that surround them but also the federal and state laws and political practices that go along with it.

If you have a problem with the way courts rule, you change the law, you don’t overturn the justice system.

But even if that weren’t true we should remember that while the constitutional provisions don’t prevent states from moving away from winner-take-all elections they do discourage them from doing so. The EC leaves the choice to the state legislatures and that is the best strategy for state officials to maximize their clout.

I don’t think this argument makes any sense. The repbulicans want the democrats to maximize their power when they have it, and the democrats want the republicans to maximize their power when they have it? That’s what’s keeping the winner-take-all behavior embedded in the states, poor reasoning?

It’s no coincidence that nearly all states do it the same way. And it’s no coincidence that opponents in Colorado have chosen referendum rather than trying to push a bill through the regular state legislature.

Sounds to me like they still have a problem with their representatives. I can’t help them with that. I have a few suggestions about what they can do, though.

This assumes that the current 2 Party System remains intact which is a difficult pill to swallow given that the commonly accepted reason it’s still around is because of the plurality elections this proposes we do away with.

What fantasy world are you living in? Eliminating the EC and going with a popular vote won’t stop a plurality winner. A real majority won’t magically appear. All it changes is the way votes are counted. That’s it. There’s no ideological goldmine here.

Why should we assume that once you remove the winner-take-all penalty people won’t support smaller parties that better represent their beliefs?

Why do you assume that that will elect a more popular president?

[scotandrsn]

Oh, goody! An EC thread!

I’ve said this all before, and I’ll say it again.

**

1. The EC was part of the Founding Fathers’ notion of cehcks and balances.**

You had a House, whose makeup was determined by relative population of the States, voted directly by the People (or at least those eligible to vote for the largest state legistlative body). Nice short terms, so that the People could feel like their vacillating political whims were reflected in government. (I think we should relax rules in the House against hand-to-hand combat, like they had in the past, but that’s just me.)

You had a Senate, based on what states existed, elected by the state governments. Assuming the State governments were elected by the people, then the people essentially elected both Chambers, but their votes for one were filtered through the intermediary layer of the State legislature. This was done away with by the 17th Amendment, which needs some swift repealing, IMO.

Then you have a President. If you have him selected by the House, that’s too much control in the hands of the People. If by the Senate, too much control in the hands of the States. So you create a third entity, an Electoral College, equal in size to the Congress but containing none of its members, whose job specifically is to elect the president. The EC is appointed by the State legislature, and they can make the appointments any damn way they please: draw from a hat, consult Tarot cards, whatever.

2. Winner-take-all Elector selection is an idea whose time has passed.

Most states, except the previously-mentioned Nebraska and Maine, have decided to appoint their entire slate of electors based on the results of popular vote majority, with the candidate getting the most votes getting all the electors.

This system has evolved because in the past, the idea was that a would-be president would have to pay a lot of attention to a state ijn order to get its EC votes. Not so in today’s climate. Disproportionate population growth around the country has greatly reduced the effect of the “smaller-states-get-more-than-proportional-Electoral-say” structure of the EC, and political polarization of the nation means that California’s 55 votes aren’t enough to get the White House to pay attention to this solid-Democrat-majority population.

3. My solution for California

a. I constantly hear calls for changes in government, that we need an annual referendum on the performance of the president, or that an Office of the National Ombudsman needs to be established.

b. It is my opinion that the EC, as a real representative body, is not so much an idea that has been tried but found wanting as much as it is an idea that has been found odd and not tried.

c. We just had a gubernatorial recall election where it was relatively easy to enter. Sure it was a circus, but a LOT of people, attracted by the large ballot and the feeling like they were really making themselves heard, voted.

Soooooo…

What we do is take California’s Elector offices and divide them into four groups (kinda like the 3 groups in the US Senate).

Let’s say its 2012, and California has gained another House seat, and hence, another Electoral vote, for a total of 56.

Every year, we elect 14 Electors to a four-year term. They can have party affiliation or not, but don’t necessarily have to commit to a particular candidate, although they are allowed to. This amounts to an annual review on the performance of the President, and Elector’s offices will be abuzz with “input”, making them, in effect, federal ombudsmen for the state populace.

Since Electors’ only real job would be to show up in Sacramento every four years and vote, the rest of their time could be taken up calling attention to themselves and the performance of the current Chief Executive, both in the positive and the negative. Celebrities would be attracted to the job (the way Ahnold, Gary Coleman, Angelyne and Gallagher were attracted to the recall), which could increase voter turnout for accompanying local elections, ballot initiatives, et. al. Those wondering why we should listen to what “Hollywood Liberals” have to say could cease to wonder, because now some of them would hold offices with Federal consequences.

The annual election would get people voting every year instead of every two, which might increase voter turnout as well, if you could sell the idea that they are effectively voting for president every year. Even if it didn’t, the POTUS would constantly have a chance to lock in some Electoral support, and be behooved to pay attention to us all the time.

A win-win, I say.

[2sense]

@erislover

It isn’t one at all. That’s the states’ call. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the states, not the EC.

As I tried to explain to you, the state regulations regarding the presidential elections are part of the Electoral College. The concept/term is not restricted merely to the constitutional provisions. It encompasses the entire structure that has grown up around them. What I was saying was that how the states run their elections leaves us unequal. This is one of the major problems of the EC.

And fewer people per representative, as I’ve indicated. That’s our system of representation.

Congressional representation is beside the point. But yes, as you say this is how things work now. Notice that some of us don’t think this is a good idea. As I believe I have said once or twice before in this forum, the existence of a status quo does not justify the status quo. Can you produce any actual justifications for leaving people in more populous states with less electoral power?

It tends to overrepresent minorities, which in this case are smaller population states. You’ll note some methods like a Borda Count do the same thing, even without an Electoral College. There is simply no fair way to count.

What we are comparing is the current system to a straight popular vote. Since both systems use a single nontransferable vote there is no need to judge the fairness of how the vote is counted. They are both counted the same way. Thus discussion of any kind of IRV system is beside the point.

Like Puerto Rico, which has been, as I recall, offerred their position and chose to remain a commonwealth? Like Cuba, which chose to go independent? Like the friend of my mom’s who lives in Switzerland but could get an absentee ballot? Oh… right. Damn that electoral college which has nothing to do with any of these things!

Americans living in foreign nations are beside the point. Federal law forbids the last state they resided in from scrubbing them from the voter lists. So long as they once resided in a state they can’t be disenfranchised.

The status of Puerto Rico is beside the point. My argument is not about the island but about the Americans who live there. They are citizens and yet they can not vote. This certainly does have something to do with the EC because if we had a straight popular vote evey citizen could vote.

If you have a problem with the way courts rule, you change the law, you don’t overturn the justice system.

This is beside the point. So for beside it that I have no clue what you think you are talking about. The quote this purports to respond to was simply an explanation of what the Electoral College is. You seemed to think it refered only to the constitutional provisions. I was correcting your misunderstanding.

I don’t think this argument makes any sense. The repbulicans want the democrats to maximize their power when they have it, and the democrats want the republicans to maximize their power when they have it? That’s what’s keeping the winner-take-all behavior embedded in the states, poor reasoning?

Clearly you didn’t understand. The point here is that the current constitutional provisions encourage the unit system by leaving the choice to people who derive maximum political clout from picking the unit system. Clear?

Sounds to me like they still have a problem with their representatives. I can’t help them with that. I have a few suggestions about what they can do, though.

That’s beside the point. We are discussing the entire system here, not just the behavior of state officials within it. Yes, they might better serve their constituents but that doesn’t justify keeping in place a system that allows them to place their own interests above those of the people of their state.

What fantasy world are you living in? Eliminating the EC and going with a popular vote won’t stop a plurality winner. A real majority won’t magically appear. All it changes is the way votes are counted. That’s it. There’s no ideological goldmine here.

I seem to live in the world where we deal with the issue at hand instead of introducing extraneous input that obscures the point. My fantasy is that you might join me. Then I won’t need to repeat the phrase “that’s beside the point” so often.

Again you offer a reply that misses the point. I’m saying here that plurality elections are what sustain the 2 Party System so you shouldn’t assume the 2 Party System would remain intact if you move away from pluality elections. It’s a pretty basic point. Care to address it?

Why do you assume that that will elect a more popular president?

I made no such assumption but this also misses the point. Again, there is no reason to believe, as you have asserted, that "It would take a rather extreme case whereby, if all states adopted this method of apportioning their EC votes, the candidate that one failed to represent the simple plurality vote." because there is every reason to think that such a method would result in a growth of minor parties preventing any party from gaining a majority of electors outright. At this point that would throw the election into the House with each state delegation receiving a single vote.

[erislover]

@2sense

Again you offer a reply that misses the point. I’m saying here that plurality elections are what sustain the 2 Party System so you shouldn’t assume the 2 Party System would remain intact if you move away from pluality elections. It’s a pretty basic point. Care to address it?

I’ll address this, and let the rest of what I’ve said speak for itself. As indicated, popular vote has nothing to do with a plurality determining the winner. That means you have no point. Presumably, the plurality of popular votes would determine the winner rather than the plurality of EC votes. Nothing you’ve said indicates otherwise. Nothing forbids the plurality from being a majority, but the plurality doesn’t have to be a majority. You suggest that leaving the EC will sap votes from the major political parties. This suggests that even less popular candidates, as measured by votes, will win. Which is still a plurality. Which means you still have no point to address.

[Marley23]

@erislover

Except, just like in every other election you vote in, within a state your vote means exactly as much as everyone else’s.

Yes, and there’s a national level in which it doesn’t, since this is a nation-wide election. If Congressmen and Senators were elected by a similar system within the state, that would be more comparable.

[DrDeth]

@2sense

At the bottom of post #22 I explain why this is not true. There is no need for constitutional convention or even constitutional amendment to move to a popular vote. Simple legislation at the federal level would get the ball rolling and even without Congress individual states can choose to assign their electoral votes to the national winner and not just the winner in that particular state.

I have grave doubts as to how Consitutional that is, and in any case, it would just give each state the right to go the way they wanted. NOT a solution at all, sorry.

[Scarface_Z]

indubitably in at least some swing states there is some sort of dishonesty going on at the polls. if every persons vote counted, there would be incentive for “cheating” in every poll across the nation, especially in a tight race. not that this is a reason to keep the electoral college, but it is a problem that has to be resolved before we even think of dissembling the electoral sysytem.

[Chicago_Faucet]

The reason we have the Electoral College is because the term “Popular Vote” does not exist anywhere in our Constitution.

Also, we are the United States Of America. We vote as States. Each state, like a lodge, tells the other States who won in their area.

The Electoral College also minimizes such anomalies as stated above. Notice that I said “minimizes”, not “eliminates”.

[EllisDee]

Can somebody please explain to me how an unpopular vote gets ignored or discounted in any way?

By unpopular vote, I mean like a Kerry vote in Texas.

The State of Texas holds an election for POTUS. It announces the winner of their election. Those voting for Kerry were not discounted, they simply lost.

At what point do you make the logical leap from “I lost” to “I wasn’t counted”?

[Hazel]

@rfgdxm

Well, for one at the moment the Democrats aren’t in much of a position to make anything end.

The history of why the electoral college exists is complex. However, you might want to consider the scenario of a 4 man race, where none gets more than 30% of the vote. A system where the guy who gets the most votes wins may not be ideal. And historically, in the US it hasn’t always been that there are just 2 parties that are dominant.

“A 4 man race where none gets more than 30% of the vote.”

First, can we make that a 4 person race? Thank you.

Second, there are two simple solutions:

1. Require that whenever the candidate with the most votes has less than 51% of the vote, a runoff election will be held, or

2. Move to IRV (Instant Runoff Voting).

If we want to have a President that was not voted against by more than half the voters, we need to either use IRV or have actual runoff elections.

[Hazel]

@Lord Ashtar

Because if the President is selected based solely on the Popular vote, the candidates will only have to campaign in the five or six largest cities in order to get enough votes. The rest of the U.S. would be ignored.

And why would that be any worse than the current situation, where a minority of states (the up-for-grabs states) get all the attention, and the rest of the U.S. is ignored?

[Hazel]

@Part of Pochacco's post

Other advantages to the electoral college:

• It compartmentalizes electoral problems. If you think the Florida recount was bad, imagine a national recount … .

• It keeps elections as a state-run enterprise. With a national popular vote we’d have to have national election machinery for a once-every-four-years occurance.

Have each state hold its own election, then report the results to a national tabulating office. Tabulators add everything up, report results. Thus, the states use the same election methods as they use for state and local electins, and any recounts are confined to whichever states’ results are disputed.

[Hazel]

@acsenray

My viewpoint is this:

There might be a lot of good reasons why a straight popular vote is troublesome. However, in addressing such problems, one must never disturb the principle of “one man, one vote.” To me, that is an issue of fundamental right. Do what you want, but no matter what your reasoning is, it’s inexcusable to decide that people who live closer together (urban) should get proportionally fewer votes than people who live further apart (rural). It’s doubly inexcusable to deny some voters any votes at all based simply on their positioning relative to a randomly drawn line (state border).

There was a time when there were far more rural residents than urban residents. In those days, the rural people had more power, in proportion with their numbers. And that was appropriate. However, we now live in a world where there are more urban people. You know what? That’s democracy. You get some fundamental rights that the majority can’t screw with (as an aside, I believe that there should be more of these than we allow for today), but beyond that, if there are fewer of you, you get fewer votes and that’s that.

Good post! I agree.

[2sense]

@scotandrsn

1. The EC was part of the Founding Fathers’ notion of cehcks and balances.

Nice job. That looks like an accurate explanation of what happened, as far as it goes. With one exception. While today we think of 2 years as a short term for an elected representative there were plenty of people back then who felt that “Where annual elections end, tyranny begins!” Both House and Senate were deliberately given long terms to make them more independent and less democratic. Plenty of delegates wanted longer terms for both and it seems certain they would have put them in the Constitution if they thought they could get away with it. It did have to get ratified, after all.

2. Winner-take-all Elector selection is an idea whose time has passed.

Here though I disagree. The advantage of having a state adopt the unit rule is exactly the same now as it was then: it enhances the status of local power brokers. If a state elected electors in districts then a power broker could only help deliver some of the electoral votes to his or her party instead of them all. The same goes for a proportional election though that doesn’t seem to have been considered in the past as it is today.

And the powerbrokers aren’t just locals anymore. I suspect this is why people like Vernon Jordan support the EC. He says it helps African-Americans by allowing them to turn key states. I don’t think the EC does empower blacks. If it did we would have done away with it long ago. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t benefit the Urban League. ( That’s not to say that Jordan is being dishonest about his support. I’m sure it makes perfect sense to him to identify interests of the League with the interests of blacks. )

Also, I disagree that we have a situation where the White House can always ignore California. The White House can ignore Cali right now because Bush is in there and that state isn’t going to vote for his ass. If a Democrat were in the White House it would be a different story. They would ignore those 55 electoral votes at their peril because they can’t win another election without them.

3. My solution for California

As I have told you in the past, this makes no sense to me. Why do you think we need representatives to perform such a simple function as picking a leader every 4 years?

@erislover

I’ll address this, and let the rest of what I’ve said speak for itself.

Your call. For my part, I would hope to leave behind words that say something more than, “This stuff confuses me.”

*As indicated, popular vote has nothing to do with a plurality determining the winner. That means you have no point. Presumably, the plurality of popular votes would determine the winner rather than the plurality of EC votes. Nothing you’ve said indicates otherwise. Nothing forbids the plurality from being a majority, but the plurality doesn’t have to be a majority. You suggest that leaving the EC will sap votes from the major political parties. This suggests that even less popular candidates, as measured by votes, will win. Which is still a plurality. Which means you still have no point to address.

Again, you miss the point. Your claim that “It would take a rather extreme case whereby, if all states adopted this method of apportioning their EC votes, the candidate that one failed to represent the simple plurality vote” is incorrect not because no candidate would gain a plurality of the popular vote or the electoral vote under a proportional system but because a plurality of the electoral vote does no good unless it is an actual majority. Since a proportional system would encourage the growth of minor parties it would be more difficult for any candidate to get a majority of electors outright which would lead to either bargaining with the electors of the minor parties to gain a majority or having the election thrown into the House where each state delegation receives a single vote. Neither of those eventualities makes it extremely unlikely for the president to be anyone other than the person who won the most individual votes nationwide.

@DrDeth

I have grave doubts as to how Consitutional that is, and in any case, it would just give each state the right to go the way they wanted. NOT a solution at all, sorry.

Of course any state can go any way they want. That’s what the Constitution allows them to do. My plan takes advantage of that fact by asking states to choose to pledge their electors to the most popular candidate nationwide. Since states get to assign their electors however they want the plan is perfectly constitutional.

[scotandrsn]

@2sense

Nice job. That looks like an accurate explanation of what happened, as far as it goes. With one exception. While today we think of 2 years as a short term for an elected representative there were plenty of people back then who felt that “Where annual elections end, tyranny begins!”

Interesting points, and my California EC system would bring back annual elections of real consequence, which I hope would increase turnout.

@2sense

Here though I disagree. The advantage of having a state adopt the unit rule is exactly the same now as it was then: it enhances the status of local power brokers. If a state elected electors in districts then a power broker could only help deliver some of the electoral votes to his or her party instead of them all. The same goes for a proportional election though that doesn’t seem to have been considered in the past as it is today.

More interesting points. I would like to think my system would reduce the effect of the power brokers, in that one would have to be particularly strong to influence annual elections over the course of four years.

@2sense

Also, I disagree that we have a situation where the White House can always ignore California. The White House can ignore Cali right now because Bush is in there and that state isn’t going to vote for his ass. If a Democrat were in the White House it would be a different story. They would ignore those 55 electoral votes at their peril because they can’t win another election without them.

Californians should be able to have whatever affiliation they wish without risking abandonment by the Executive, which is what is occurring now.

Let’s look at recent political events here. Dissatisfaction with Democrat Gray Davis combined with Arniemania means that conservative feelings were out in force during that time in this state. Now suppose there had been 14 Electoral votes on the line as well, at the same time. Even Karl Rove would have given the go-ahead to float some pork our way (even if some of it carried a slightly left-wing stench) and trotted Georgie out here to shmooze with local Republican Elector candidates.

@2sense

As I have told you in the past, this makes no sense to me. Why do you think we need representatives to perform such a simple function as picking a leader every 4 years?

And as I have responded in the past, for the same reason we don’t write our laws by herding the entire electorate into a wheat field in Kansas to write our laws.

Representative government works quite well in a number of situations, and when (PDF) a large number of the half of the populace that plans to vote for Bush is operating on an "interesting grasp of reality, then I say respresentatives are needed for the Presidential election.

[BobLibDem]

@Ellis Dee

Can somebody please explain to me how an unpopular vote gets ignored or discounted in any way?

By unpopular vote, I mean like a Kerry vote in Texas.

The State of Texas holds an election for POTUS. It announces the winner of their election. Those voting for Kerry were not discounted, they simply lost.

At what point do you make the logical leap from “I lost” to “I wasn’t counted”?

A Texas Kerry vote is “not counted” in the sense that whether Kerry earns 1% of the Texas vote or 49% of the Texas vote, he will get 0% of the electors. Of course, Florida and New Mexico were the ultimate examples last time. The Gore voters in Florida had no bearing on the national election although they were quite nearly exactly equal to the Bush voters in number.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Good grief…I think I have posted the link below a half dozen times in threads regarding the Electoral College. Wish someone would read it for once as it is a mathematical treatment of how the Electoral College is a good thing and actually increases individual voter power. It is all too easy for people to think a straight majority vote is more “fair” without realizing what they would actually point the country too.

It may be that someone can still make a convincing argument against the EC but I’d like for once to see it made with the rigor the treatment below has given it rather than a vague notion of what is more “fair”.

[quote]
James Madison, chief architect of our nation’s electoral college, wanted to protect each citizen against the most insidious tyranny that arises in democracies: the massed power of fellow citizens banded together in a dominant bloc. As Madison explained in The Federalist Papers (Number X), “a well-constructed Union” must, above all else, “break and control the violence of faction,” especially “the superior force of an . . . overbearing majority.” In any democracy, a majority’s power threatens minorities. It threatens their rights, their property, and sometimes their lives.

A well-designed electoral system might include obstacles to thwart an overbearing majority. But direct, national voting has none. Under raw voting, a candidate has every incentive to woo only the largest bloc…

SOURCE: Math Against Tyranny, by Will Hively, Discover magazine, November, 1996

[Whack-a-Mole]

Dang…messed up the quote.

@Whack-a-Mole

James Madison, chief architect of our nation’s electoral college, wanted to protect each citizen against the most insidious tyranny that arises in democracies: the massed power of fellow citizens banded together in a dominant bloc. As Madison explained in The Federalist Papers (Number X), “a well-constructed Union” must, above all else, “break and control the violence of faction,” especially “the superior force of an . . . overbearing majority.” In any democracy, a majority’s power threatens minorities. It threatens their rights, their property, and sometimes their lives.

A well-designed electoral system might include obstacles to thwart an overbearing majority. But direct, national voting has none. Under raw voting, a candidate has every incentive to woo only the largest bloc…

SOURCE: Math Against Tyranny, by Will Hively, Discover magazine, November, 1996