As a result of the November 7 election, Democrats control both houses of the legislature in 23 states, whereas Republicans control both houses in 15 states (the remainder are split between the two major parties, or are non-partisan).
The National Popular Vote Plan, the proposal for a compact of states to appoint only presidential electors who are pledged to the national popular vote winner, will probably get a boost from Democratic gains in state legislatures. Although proponents of the National Popular Vote Plan have worked very hard to present a non-partisan appeal, during 2006 it became very clear that Democratic state legislators virtually unanimously support the idea, whereas few Republican state legislators support it.
Honestly, I hope some small state threatens secesion over garbage like this. Yes, the electoral college is confusing, and yes, it does sometimes install an executive who earned less than 50% of the national vote, but it also prevents some truly awful scenarios:
1)A McCarthy-style demagouge campaigns on a platform openly hostile to an unpopular religious, social, or ethnic group and splinters one of the major parties in the process. (S)he then wins with 30-40% of the vote and cracks down in a manner that makes Bush II look like Mary Poppins.
2)A candidate panders to voters in heavily populated areas and ignores rural americans completely. (S)he wins, continues the pandering and ignoring in office, and we end up with a food-supply crisis or worse.
3)Partisan (and ethically elastic) County Commissioners and Secretaries of State notice that the incentive for vote fraud has doubled and respond accordingly, creating incredible confusion and Florida 2000 style legal tussles in a half-dozen states.
All this and more, just so that our electoral system can appear a little simpler and more equitable? Thanks, but no thanks.
2) A candidate runs
Sometimes I think we need a new system; but, when I stop and think about it the present electoral college system in place benefits a third party because if a third party wins a few states in a presidential election and denies either of the two major party candidates a victory than the major parties can approach the third party spoiler for the electoral delegates it won and bargain for them and the third party is in a position to demand something in return. Or of course, resolve the issue through Constitutional methods which would make Americans hot under the collar (they still remember Florida 2000) at the final result.
This plan is against the original intent of the Constitution.What is really needed is an understanding of our founding fathers original intent Among the general population,and a Repeal of the 17th Amendment,which is what began steering us away from a Constitutional Republic in the first place.
“This plan is against the original intent of the Constitution.”
So is direct election of senators by the people. The electoral college is part of an 18th century belief prominent in our country’s early aristocracy (just like it was in Europe) that “the masses are too stupid to vote for their leader”.
“1)A McCarthy-style demagouge campaigns on a platform openly hostile to an unpopular religious, social, or ethnic group and splinters one of the major parties in the process. (S)he then wins with 30-40% of the vote and cracks down in a manner that makes Bush II look like Mary Poppins.”
You just described what Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party of the time did to the Whigs.
Besides, the electoral college does not prevent such scenarios. See George Wallace in 1968, who presidential scholars today somewhat agree wanted to try to throw the election to the House of Representatives by neither Nixon nor Humphrey getting a majority of the electoral vote.
Matt: If you’re going to claim that these things are more likely to happen in the absence of an Electoral College, you have to describe with some precision the incentives and mechanisms that would be generated. EC supporters like to assert that it protects the interests of “small states” and prevents demagoguery without describing in detail how it does so. You need a rigorous model. Right now all you have is assertions.
The founders did lots of asserting too. For instance, they asserted that their brilliant system would discourage the formation of political parties. Uh-huh.
It’s true that I haven’t defended my assertions in detail, I reccomend Senator Mitch McConnell’s book “Securing Democracy: Why we have an Electoral College”. In it, the contributors lays out some scenarios similar to the ones I mentioned, but also offers some reminders that the the prestige of the presidency would be unnaturally and unhealthily exalted by having him directly elected.
Ideally, a President should be an executor of laws and not an all-powerful Fuhrer. We’ve lost this balance, and run the risk of creating a government of men rather than a government of laws. The modern media isn’t helping; neither is the spirit of the age, but one thing is certain, direct election would only serve to contribute further to the unhealthy power and authority of one office (the Presidency) and that’s more dangerous than any one candidate or ‘stolen election’ could possibly be.
Under the “spirit” of the original EC, it did discourage Political Parties, it was really after the 12th Amendment that Parties bagan to form. Repeal the 12th & 17th amendments and eliminate the law that supersedes the Constitution on the number of Representatives and we have the “Intent of the Constitution” back in our Government.
The “intent of the constitution” was to secure a horse-trading political compromise among all 13 states in order to get a federal government off the ground.
The various quasi-“theories” that are bandied about as “intent” were generally formulated _after_ the Constitution was drafted as campaign propaganda for its adoption. In 2006, they say, “If you vote for so-and-so, she’ll raise your taxes and give all your money to immigrants.” In 1788, they said, “If you vote against the Constitution, they will elect someone who will take your property and give it to your tenants.”
National Popular Presidential Vote Plan would be just one more step in the wrong direction.
Well, we have a good argument here. I think we should reform the Electoral College but not abolish it. Since the Electoral College keeps the two-party system strong, what all electoral reformers must do is to realize that once we find the key to reform the Electoral College, our elections can change. For example, I propose that we keep the Electoral Votes but not the Electors and each state would have their own election just like now using Instant Runoff Voting. In states with more than 3 electoral votes, you have 2 going to the party of the winner of the final round and the remaining votes are allocated proportionally using the results of the first round. Those states having 3 votes would allocate all the votes proportionally. This would be done state by state. If no candidate receives the 50% +1 of the Electoral votes and popular vote, then you eliminate the lowest ranked candidates and electoral votes(if any). The electoral votes and 1st choices are transferred to each voters’ 2nd choice.
The easiest reform to the electoral system (which should be kept) is the Nebraska/Maine style of electors given by congressional districts won and the overall state winner receiving the additional 2 electoral votes. This adds in an element of proportionality while still providing a firewall of protection against fraud.
The best reason to keep the electoral system is fraud protection. In a national popular vote a Florida-esque problem (or the stereotypical Chicago dead vote) will likely either a) toss the election to a candidate that did not actually win or b) require a comprehensive recount of the entire country to verify who actually won (take 2000’s problems/legal battles and mutliply by 10/12/20 – not healthy whatever the outcome would be). Creating stoping points along the way (Congressional Districts and/or States) diminishes the effects of fraud while also allowing for the focuing in of recounts where potential problems are at their worst.
I can’t say I’m a fan of the electoral system but given that 1500+ proposed amendments have failed to get rid of it, we have to work around it. I’m not sure about this popular vote plan — just doesn’t appeal to me. I prefer a win-by-majority Constitutional amendment: any candidate seeking any elected office in the US must win a majority (50% + 1) of the votes cast in order to assume office. It’s a fairly easy concept to explain to voters and would appeal to their high-school influenced understanding of democracy. Better yet, it would require run-offs, and Instant Runoff voting just so happens to be the best, cheapest and most efficient method for collecting the voter data in one election. The win-by-majority amendment would significantly alter the landscape for independents and minor party candidates because it obliterates the “spoiler” issue. That in itself would probably reduce the number of close election outcomes since almost all voters impact the final outcome — larger number of participants means less chance of a draw.
I was initially drawn to Phil’s suggestion of adopting a Nebraska/Maine style of awarding electoral votes by congressional district (that is, doing away with the state level “winner take all” rules) but later realized that if a two or three minor party Presidential candidates won congressional districts regionally, then it’s possible that none of the presidential candidates of them would attain the required 270 electoral votes. So we’d be back to square one. Am I thinking correctly on that? So it appears to me that as long as we have the electoral college, then “winner take all” rules significantly reduce the probability of a hung election. I still like Phil’s suggestion because I truly detest the state-wide winner-take-all rules. Even with the above stated fault, I think his suggestion is superior to the current situation where CA, TX, etc are so heavily weighted. But given the electoral college appears here to stay, and I want my minor party presidential candidate to participate in the general election, I cannot yet think of a way to get rid of winner-take-all rules without increasing the chance of a hung election.
Anyway, for minor parties and independents, it appears to me this popular vote plan doesn’t do crap for us. A win-by-majority amendment and instant run-off voting would be a better way to go, even if it doesn’t totally solve the problem of hung presidential elections. At least we’d have a better chance of being competitive in ALL other races. Additionally, hung presidential elections gives us some good talking points and requires the Republicrats to defend the status quo. The best thing about this Popular Vote plan is that it got proposed in the first place. Now that the conversation got started, we independents have an opening to sell the American voters on a better idea.
I forgot to mention one minor point ;). Given my proposal above, what would have happen if one candidate wins the EC and another wins the majority? IMHO — since both EC and win-by-majority would be Constitutional directives, there is no clear winner, and like the Constitution says, it should be decided in the House of Representatives. Let them decide before creating this compact between the States. Does anyone know why the folks pushing this popular vote plan prefer not to have a draw decided in the House?
Congressional districts are gerrymandered. Using them to elect the president just further distorts that election. Even if you were to ban explicit partisan gerrymandering, there are no perfect, proportionality-enhancing Congressional districts out there waiting to be drawn.
As for the anti-fraud argument, let’s be clear about what the argument is. The argument is that there is only an incentive for election fraud when the votes are relevant to the outcome of the election. By making most people’s votes irrelevant to the outcome of the election, you cut down on election fraud. Not a very convincing argument from my perspective.
A couple years ago I actually took the last 3 elections (the two Perot elections and then 2000) and came up with an electoral voting system based on percentage of vote.
For example, say a state has 10 electoral votes:
Candidate A: 50%
Candidate B: 40%
Candidate C: 10%
Candidate A would receive 5 electoral votes, Candidate B would receive 4 electoral votes, and Candidate C would receive 1 electoral vote.
In an example where the numbers aren’t as pretty, you have to divide the electoral vote count into 100%. So in a state with 25 electoral votes, each 4% of the vote a candidate would get would be worth 1 electoral vote. Now, in such a state, assume the following result:
Candidate A = 51%
Candidate B = 45%
Candidate C = 3%
Candidate D = 1%
This would give each candidate:
Candidate A = 12 electoral votes
Candidate B = 11 electoral votes
Candidate C = 0 electoral votes
Candidate D = 0 electoral votes
There are 2 electoral votes remaining. These go to the candidates with the largest remaining percentage left.
Candidate A = 51% – (4% x 12) = 3% remaining
Candidate B = 45% – (4% x 11) = 1% remaining
Candidate C = 3%
Candidate D = 1%
So the two remaining electoral votes go to Candidate A and Candidate C.
So the final electoral vote count would be:
Candidate A = 13 electoral votes
Candidate B = 11 electoral votes
Candidate C = 1 electoral votes
As you can imagine, this system was very close to the popular vote as far as percentage each candidate received. I think it was within 1%, much better than the system now. Perot got over a 100 electoral votes in 1992, Nader got around 12 in 2000. The nice thing about this system is there is no spoiler in effect. The guy in 3rd if no one has a majority can act as a kingmaker and give his votes to push someone above 270. I believe in this system Nader could have done that for Gore and Gore would have won, taking away the Democrats’ trump card on why they should not vote for Greens.
As an add-on to my post, it should be noted that one thing I did notice is that the smaller the state, the less effect third parties had. This would make sense as 100%/3 electoral votes = 33.3% per vote, while in say California an electoral vote would be equal to less than 2% of the vote.
I personally see nothing wrong with the winner of the popular vote winning the election.
Since when were the Demcorats the ones trying to steal the 2000 election?
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