The Boston Globe of July 14 has this op-ed by Political Science Professor David Lewis Schaefer, of the College of the Holy Cross. The op-ed opposes the National Popular Vote Plan, which will probably receive a vote in the Massachusetts Senate in a few days (HB 678).
The op-ed says the plan “has the effect of denying smaller states the extra electoral weight that the current system provides them.” That sentence is not true. Each state would continue to have just as many electoral votes, under the plan, as it does today. The plan does not abolish the electoral college and does (and could not) alter the number of electoral votes each state would continue to possess. Furthermore, the states that have already passed the plan or would have passed the plan if the governor hadn’t vetoed it, are disproportionately small states. Of the seven states in which the plan has passed the legislature, three (Hawaii, Vermont and Rhode Island) have just 3 or 4 electoral votes.
And . . .
The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.
Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).
Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has “only” 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York’s use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming—both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.
Mr. Shafer is wrong about one thing, the National Popular Vote Plan will not help third parties. It would, in fact, effectively destroy them.
The National Popular Vote Plan will make it possible for a handful of states to keep third parties off the ballot and make it impossible for them to win.
National Popular Vote will not survive a Constitutional Challenge, but if it did, it would:
1) destroy the already weakend third parties
2) make politics even more a contest of promises and pandering to special interests and the lowest common denominator
3) increase the problems with recounts and close elections
4) increase the likelihood and severity of the electoral fraud problem
and
5) eviscerate the Federal system, destroy States’ Rights and make the US more susceptible to a COUP or takeover by a fascist-socialist or military dictatorship
Say NO to this stupid, fascist-socialist anti-libertarian plan.
Support the Maine/Nebraska plan for choosing the Electoral College. This plan will secure our liberty, improve the competitiveness of elections, reduce electoral fraud, make it possible for 3rd Parties to compete and grow, and create hundreds of “battleground” districts.
Dear Richard Winger,
You’ve done a great job supporting free elections and 3rd parties for decades, but you’ve got this one wrong. We need to kill this dangerous plan and support the Maine/Nebraska system.
It’s time to create a movement to support and spread the Maine/Nebraska plan of selecting the Electoral College.
The Maine/Nebraska system, if imposed nationally, would exaggerate the bad effects of gerrymandering. Congressional districts are already outrageously gerrymandered in many states, and the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that there is no protection in the U.S. Constitution against gerrymandering (the Court has held the door open for a possible future challenge, but the Court has always found that current examples are not unconstitutional).
The Maine/Nebraska system, if used nationwide in 2000, would have given the Republicans a very large lead in the electoral college, even though the Republican nominee polled 537,000 votes fewer than the Democratic nominee. The Maine/Nebraska system would turn a system that is already unfair, into a system far more unfair.
Before 1860, there were numerous instances where the
Electoral votes of a state were divided amongst 2 or
more candidates. However, after the Republicans came
to power they worked to end that “problem” with the
current unit-rule (winner take all). Had that stayed
a part of Presidential elections some of what did
occur in 2000 would not now be used to justify the
wholesale rejection of federalism that the National
Vote Plan entails.
Now, as to Richard’s comment about the gerrymandering
of Congressional seats. In all larger (8 or more votes)
states they will be some “rotten boroughs” where the
voter registration or profile will hardly change from
one elction to the next. In the special election that
was held centering on a Long Beach Congressional seat,
the principal focus of the Democratic primary was were
the Hispanic’s going to capture one of California’s
few black seats. Considering what has occurred since
then, it should have happened. Then again one can also
find Districts where its over 50% Republican just like
some states. I would prefer that the Maine/Nebraska
system be adopted nationally because I believe that in
those cases where voting shenanigans take place you
would be affecting a far smaller number of voters and
Electoral Votes. Remember the stated purpose of having
the Electoral College is to encourage the candidates
to campaign in & consider the interests of as many
states as possible.
Another reason that states didn’t have all their electoral votes cast for the same presidential candidate was that before 1920, all states let voters vote for individual presidential elector candidates. So voters could vote for some members of an electoral slate, and not other members of that same slate. So when the election was really close, the candidates at the top of one party’s list would win, but the candidates toward the bottom of that same list would lose to the top-most candidates on some other slate. The last time this happened was West Virginia 1916, with one Wilson elector and 7 Hughes electors. The time before that was California 1912, with 11 Roosevelt electors and 2 Wilson electors.
I would favor a plan someone proposed a time ago. Give voters 3 votes, 2 at-large and 1 Congressional District. Although I thought of a folksy new alternative. It consists of a 2 tier idea. First, you allocate Electoral Votes by Congressional District, each getting 1. Second, you allocate the at-large Electoral Votes, depending whether a state has 2 or 3. If a state has 2, 1 EV is given to the candidate with the most votes in the first round and 1 EV is given to the winner in the final round. If a state has 3 EV, 2 EV are allocated to the top 2 candidates with the most votes and 1 EV is allocated to the winner of the final round. Of course, with the use of Instant Runoff Voting.
I’d prefer just eliminating the anti-democratic “Electoral College” altogether.
Amen, amen, to a five decades ‘hate affair’ with this imperial, elitist mess……
Sorry Richard, but you can’t say what you said in #3 for a fact. Sure, you can look at the way the vote totals turned out back then and say this is the way it would have gone, but you can’t be sure the voters would have voted that way if they knew their candidate had a chance to get an electoral vote or two. I know many New Yorkers who won’t vote for a third party candidate because “they don’t want to waste their vote”. In essence, they’re giving their vote to one of the two major parties because they figure a third party candidate doesn’t stand a chance of getting the majority vote and winning all of the state’s electoral votes. But they readily admit that if the third party candidate had a chance to get an electoral vote or two based on voting percentages, they would gladly vote for a third party candidate. I would gladly bet that other states would work the same way. Gerrymandering only works in a two party system. Throw in a third party candidate or two and the chance for that candidate to pick up some electoral votes, and gerrymandering starts getting a lot of chinks in its armor. You’re scenario of the Republican winning a big electoral margin but losing the popular to the Democrat very well might not happen when they realize their vote actually means something for their third party candidate.
Instant runoff voting for president will eliminate that problem.
First, again, IRV is a requirement. I think anyone reading this is probably in favor of it.
however, number 2’s language is a clear indicator that democracy is not his goal:
“2) make politics even more a contest of promises and pandering to special interests and the lowest common denominator”
which basically says, don’t let the popular vote matter because people can’t make good choices.
If you believe that, you don’t believe in democracy, representative or otherwise. So why the pretense? There is nothing “socialist” about popular votes, and blurring that line makes me seriously question your judgement. Socialism is an economic policy structure, not a voting methodology.
All of your other points already exist in our current electoral system and would in no substantive way change with a popular vote plan.
Popular vote IRV. Anything less is, quite simply, less democratic then we should settle for.
This plan promotes third parties, just look at someone like Ross Perot.
Had he been a little less weird, he could have won a plurality of the vote in 92, but he never could have won a majority in the electoral college.
An extremely popular and rich person, such as Oprah, could easily mount an independent bid.
Why not start with a national nominating primary?
The US is NOT and was not intended to be a democracy. It was intended to be a “republic” where individual liberty is guaranteed.
Direct election is indeed a “socialist” way of electing the President in a large nation and destroys liberty.
Richard, you are wrong about the Maine/Nebraska system. You cannot use past elections as a guide when the Maine/Nebraska system was not in place. This is because, when there is no chance to win a single electoral district, there is no incentive to compete for it. Thus, no one tried to win close districts, so we cannot see the competitive benifit that would obviously derive from the adoption of the Maine/Nebrask plan.
Likewise, gerrymandering would be fought more intensely if the Maine/Nebraska system were adopted since there would be more at stake. Courts, some legislators and the general public would be more likely to require that districts be compact and geographically logical if electoral votes and therefore the Presidency would be affected.
This is one more win for the Maine/Nebraska system: the reduction of gerrymandering of American congressional districts.
One more change that we could work for that would improve the Congress, the electoral college and would enhance the benefit of the Maine/Nebraska system would be to expand the size of the lower house.
The US House of Representatives has been frozen for a long time at 435. It should be increased in size (to 600, 800 or more members) to increase the representation of the people in the lower house as intended. This would also shift the balance in the E.C. to a more appropriate level.
Instant runnoff and other vote reallocation schemes are a bad idea and should not be adopted. The are subject to all kinds of possible manipulation and fraud and could lead to extremely perverse outcomes.
Back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, the John Birch Society put up billboards all over the U.S., saying “This is a Republic, not a Democracy.” Those billboards have had a huge impact on people’s understanding of those words.
The only difference between a democracy and a republic is that a republic does not have a monarch, whereas a democracy may or may not have a monarch. Check the dictionary.
Both a democracy and a republic may either limit popular majorities from doing anything they want, with a constitution.
The idea that there is no check on what a majority can do in a democracy, and there is a constitutional check on what a majority can do in a republic, is simply not what those words mean.
And aside from all that, there is no connection between whether a constitution limits the majority, and whether we use a direct popular vote or the electoral college. People are simply not thinking clearly.
As Maine Green, let me tell you, gerrymandering is still very much alive here. I am very proud of my state for doing the “right thing” within the confines of the current electoral college system, but just because our founding fathers faced one political situation when they founded the country doesn’t mean we have to abide by that shackle forever.
the time for more democracy is now. not a total, unlimited, true democracy, but one more step towards it.
Your analysis is completely weak though, as IRV “schemes” do nothing except enable the true will of the voter to be heard, which is something you appear to be rather consistently against. How IRV can be “manipulated” but current votes presumably cannot to the same degree is a rather optimistic, and selective view.
Socialism is not equal to democracy. Please, look it up. While i have nothing against socialism (and in fact, any functioning society must contain at least some form of it, unless you advocate feeding prisoners with voluntary donations only), you cannot have a socialist electoral system. That statement just makes no sense, and is a transparent attempt to attach some associative label to an issue that should rightly be about democracy, and whether we think it’s a good thing or not. It’s kind of like saying you have a purely capitalist electoral system. What is that, an auction for votes? By that measure any electoral system that allows people to vote without paying for it is “socialist”. Ridiculous.
I think democracy is a very good thing. Call me a radical, I guess.
Yes, you can have a socialist electoral system, and if you rely on dictionary definitions of terms such as Socialism, Capitalism, Republic and Democracy, then you are not qualified to enter the debate.
Further, having lived and participated politics in Maine as well as numerous other states, it is clear that gerrymandering is barely existant in Maine compared to the pros in other states.
Maine, however, has the distinction of having professional, paid election fraud committed by employees of the Speaker of the Maine State Assembly over decades. Dozens of close elections were stolen and finally two men went to prison.
IRV elections are even easier to mainipulate and steal.
If you support the National Popular Vote bill, tell the MA Senate to pass it!
Please take a moment to email your State Senator in support of the National Popular Vote bill. Earlier this month, the House approved it by a vote of 119-37, and the Senate is scheduled to vote this Tuesday!
http://www.commoncause.org/siteapps/advocacy/ActionItem.aspx?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4344431