Jonathan Bernstein has this commentary at National Public Radio’s blog, on the electoral college. He points out that, currently, the American constitutional system discriminates against residents of populous states, both in the U.S. Senate, and also in the electoral college. Five of the nation’s most populous states are either overwhelmingly Democratic, or overwhelmingly Republican. Therefore, the National Popular Vote Plan would return the system toward balance. Thanks to Kimberly Wilder for the link.
Among other things —
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO uniform definition of Elector in the NPV scheme from Hell.
How many children, mentally ill, felons in jail (terrorists, murderers, etc.), foreign humans and outer space monsters will be voting for a Prez/VP if the NPV scheme from Hell magically takes effect ???
Proportional allocation of electors within each state would fix the problem of residents of big states who are in the minority in their state.
Unlike NPV, it also creates the possibility of alternative parties and independent candidates getting electoral votes – as little as 2% in California would be an electoral vote. Regionally based candidates who are strong in one part of the country or even just one state could get electoral votes and be powerbrokers; under NPV they can not.
The constitutional system balances power between feds and states for a reason. The two Senators per state regardless of population is by design, as is the electoral college.
Any state that enacts the proportional approach on its own would reduce its own influence. This was the most telling argument that caused Colorado voters to agree with Republican Governor Owens and to reject this proposal in November 2004 by a two-to-one margin.
If the proportional approach were implemented by a state, on its own,, it would have to allocate its electoral votes in whole numbers. If a current battleground state were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
The proportional method also could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
If the whole-number proportional approach had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide. Instead, the result would have been a tie of 269–269 in the electoral vote, even though Al Gore led by 537,179 popular votes across the nation. The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide and resulted in the election of the second-place candidate in terms of the national popular vote.
A system in which electoral votes are divided proportionally by state would not accurately reflect the nationwide popular vote and would not make every vote equal.
It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman. It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote. In 2000, for example, it would have resulted in the election of the second-place candidate.
A national popular vote is the way to make every person’s vote equal and guarantee that the candidate who gets the most votes in all 50 states becomes President.
In his article, Mr. Bernstein asserts:
“One of the traditional advantages, then, of the Electoral College is that it would seem to restore some balance to a political system which massively overrepresents small states in the Senate.”
Um…how is that, exactly?
If the proportional approach were implemented by a state, on its own,, it would have to allocate its electoral votes in whole numbers. If a current battleground state were to change its winner-take-all statute to a proportional method for awarding electoral votes, presidential candidates would pay less attention to that state because only one electoral vote would probably be at stake in the state.
As opposed to many states where in practice zero electoral votes are at stake. Certainly, non-battleground states would be the easiest or first to pass proportional allocation of electoral votes in first. This would diminish the importance of the remaining battleground states and perhaps the system could then spread.
The proportional method also could result in third party candidates winning electoral votes that would deny either major party candidate the necessary majority vote of electors and throw the process into Congress to decide.
That would be a good thing.
Any strong third candidate that gets electoral vote would have that same result. This would allow a third or fourth place finisher to have a greater impact on the election more easily, whereas NPV would make it harder.
If, for example, the Democrats had to worry about a candidate taking an electoral vote from them in California with just 2% of the vote, they would have to pay attention to that candidate’s issues and concerns.
If the whole-number proportional approach had been in use throughout the country in the nation’s closest recent presidential election (2000), it would not have awarded the most electoral votes to the candidate receiving the most popular votes nationwide.
And the winner of the world series is not necessarily the team that has the most home runs over the course of the series. So what?
The presidential election would have been thrown into Congress to decide
Good!
That would mean that Congress would be relatively more important vis a vis the presidency, which has become far too powerful. NPV further consolidates power in the imperial presidency to the exclusion of States and Congress.
By the way, are you sure that Nader would have gotten zero electoral votes under proportional allocation within states in 2000? I’m pretty sure he would have gotten at least one in California, and perhaps one in another state such as NY?
It would penalize states, such as Montana, that have only one U.S. Representative even though it has almost three times more population than other small states with one congressman.
Doesn’t seem right…a Congressional district is about 500-600 k people and the smallest state is not much different than that.
Three times the smallest state would be well over a million, which would be more than one rep.
It would penalize fast-growing states that do not receive any increase in their number of electoral votes until after the next federal census. It would penalize states with high voter turnout (e.g., Utah, Oregon).
Yes, that is part of the design of the federal system that includes the electoral college.
Moreover, the fractional proportional allocation approach does not assure election of the winner of the nationwide popular vote.
Yeah, you said that already. And I already answered it.
In 2000, Ralph Nader would have got 2 electoral votes in California if Paulie’s system were in place. He got 3.82% and California had 54 electors, and 3.82% of 54 is 2.
He also would have got 1 electoral vote in New York. He got 3.55% in New York, and 3.55% of 33 electoral votes equals one electoral vote.
7 –
I agree that the presidency is more powerful than it ideally should be. It’s certainly more powerful than any but a few delegates to the ConCon would have ever imagined (Hamilton immediately comes to mind, but we can’t even be sure about him).
However I don’t agree that the manner in which the winner of the presidential election is determined does, or could do, anything to change the current balance of power among the two branches of government. A president elected by the majority party of Congress (could the outcome be anything but that today?) be no more beholden to his/her own party after the election than presidents are now to their own party, elected by the EC, or elected by a nationwide plurality under the NPV.
Also, one of your other posts suggest that the Electoral College was carefully “designed” as a part of the “federal system.” I don’t think this is true. When the final plan for the Electoral College was presented by committee to the convention as a whole, it included fairly significant changes to what had previously agreed, These took the convention quite by surprise.
In defense of what the committee proposed, G. Morris included the following reasons (See Madison’s notes for Sept 4th):
The 1st. was the danger of intrigue & faction if the appointmt. should be made by the Legislature.
2. the inconveniency of an ineligibility required by that mode in order to lessen its evils.
3. The difficulty of establishing a Court of Impeachments, other than the Senate which would not be so proper for the trial nor the other branch for the impeachment of the President, if appointed by the Legislature,
4. No body had appeared to be satisfied with an appointment by the Legislature.
5. Many were anxious even for an immediate choice by the people.
6. The indispensible necessity of making the Executive independent of the Legislature. -As the Electors would vote at the same time throughout the U. S. and at so great a distance from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided. It would be impossible also to corrupt them. A conclusive reason for making the Senate instead of the Supreme Court the Judge of impeachments, was that the latter was to try the President after the trial of the impeachment.
Note that for the most part Morris and the committee were arguing against giving the Legislature more power by giving them the authority to elect the president. So their fear was not a shift of the balance of power to the Executive, but rather to the Legislature.
Furthermore, there were other reasons for instituting the EC which had validity then but have long since been obviated. One was the difficulty of tabulating popular votes in a time when news could travel no faster than a horse could run. A second was the fear that the voting public would be familiar only with, and therefore vote largely for, favorite sons of their own states, rather than the man who, ideally, would be the most fit for the office. Also, the final decision was reached very late in the Convention. Delegates wanted to return home after a long, hot, and demanding convention. Given the growing impatience to finally finish their work, and the fact that most of them envisioned (and in fact defined)an Executive which would have far less power than the Executive we have today, they didn’t give nearly as much weight to the matter of how to elect the President as they are commonly, and erroneously, given credit today.
As for the “home run” metaphor, I think you’re counting the wrong units. If a baseball team were awarded the 7th game of a World Series after having scored more runs than the opponents, there would be slightly more than a “So what?” reaction. NPV proponents prefer to count popular votes, the same unit of measure that is used to determine the allocation of electoral votes under each and every alternative to the current winner-take-all EC scheme. We also prefer to cut out the ridiculous and unnecessary “middle-man” retabulation of popular votes, just as baseball fans would object to scoring the winner of a baseball game by counting the innings in which one team scores more runs than the other team. Example: Team “A” “wins” the first inning 14-0. Team “B” wins the eight and ninth 1-0, the other six are scoreless, and Team “B” is awarded the game and series because they “won” the final game “2-1.”
Not one single baseball fan would say “So what?” if a team were to lose a game while outscoring the other team 14-2. They would think it ludicrous. A majority pf Americans feel exactly the same way about the cumbersome, outdated, and inequitable EC. The only people who will shrug their shoulders and say “So what” the net time a president is elected with less than a plurality will be those who voted for the loser…er, sorry, the EC “winner” of the election.
The only way to do this would be by constitutional amendment. I’m guessing that proportional allocation would face less resistance from the smaller states than the NPV plan.
The presidential election system we have today is not in the Constitution, and enacting National Popular Vote would not need an amendment. State-by-state winner-take-all laws to award Electoral College votes, are an example of state laws eventually enacted by states, using their exclusive power to do so, AFTER the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution, Now our current system can be changed by state laws again.
Unable to agree on any particular method, the Founding Fathers left the choice of method for selecting presidential electors exclusively to the states by adopting the language contained in section 1 of Article II of the U.S. Constitution– “Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors . . .” The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly characterized the authority of the state legislatures over the manner of awarding their electoral votes as “plenary” and “exclusive.”
The constitution does not prohibit any of the methods that were debated and rejected. Indeed, a majority of the states appointed their presidential electors using two of the rejected methods in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789 (i.e., appointment by the legislature and by the governor and his cabinet). Presidential electors were appointed by state legislatures for almost a century.
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, universal suffrage, and the 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method) are in the U.S. Constitution. Neither was the choice of the Founders when they went back to their states to organize the nation’s first presidential election.
In 1789, in the nation’s first election, the people had no vote for President in most states, only men who owned a substantial amount of property could vote, and only three states used the state-by-state winner-take-all method to award electoral votes.
The current 48 state-by-state winner-take-all method (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in a particular state) is not entitled to any special deference based on history or the historical meaning of the words in the U.S. Constitution. It is not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, the debates of the Constitutional Convention, or the Federalist Papers. The actions taken by the Founding Fathers make it clear that they never gave their imprimatur to the winner-take-all method.
The constitutional wording does not encourage, discourage, require, or prohibit the use of any particular method for awarding the state’s electoral votes.
As a result of changes in state laws enacted since 1789, the people have the right to vote for presidential electors in 100% of the states, there are no property requirements for voting in any state, and the state-by-state winner-take-all method is used by 48 of the 50 states. States can, and frequently have, changed their method of awarding electoral votes over the years. Maine and Nebraska do not use the winner-take-all method– a reminder that an amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.
The normal process of effecting change in the method of electing the President is specified in the U.S. Constitution, namely action by the state legislatures. This is how the current system was created, and this is the built-in method that the Constitution provides for making changes.
Now political clout comes from being a battleground state.
Now with state-by-state winner-take-all laws presidential elections ignore 12 of the 13 lowest population states (3-4 electoral votes), that are almost invariably non-competitive, and ignored, in presidential elections. Six regularly vote Republican (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota), and six regularly vote Democratic (Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC) in presidential elections.
Support for a national popular vote is strong in every smallest state surveyed in recent polls among Republican voters, Democratic voters, and independent voters, as well as every demographic group. Support in smaller states (3 to 5 electoral votes): Alaska — 70%, DC — 76%, Delaware –75%, Idaho – 77%, Maine — 77%, Montana – 72%, Nebraska — 74%, New Hampshire –69%, Nevada — 72%, New Mexico — 76%, Oklahoma – 81%, Rhode Island — 74%, South Dakota – 71%, Utah – 70%, Vermont — 75%, and West Virginia – 81%, and Wyoming – 69%.
Nine state legislative chambers in the lowest population states have passed the National Popular Vote bill. It has been enacted by the District of Columbia, Hawaii, and Vermont.
Abolish the EVIL timebomb Electoral College — regardless of ALL of the math MORONS who never heard about the 1860 Prez E.C. math — with the result — about 620,000 DEAD Americans on both sides in 1861-1865.
ZERO glamour about the HORRIFIC Civil W—A—R.
i.e. which EVIL bastard from Hell will open its EVIL mouth and start Civil WAR II ???
Nonpartisan App.V.
Uniform definition of Elector.
TO HELL with the very small STATES with their retarded provincial MORONS — see the MORON Senators from the very small States — barely good enough to be local dogcatchers.
i.e. ABOLISH the EVIL minority rule U.S.A. Senate — part of the EVIL compromise in the 1787 Convention between the small States and the EVIL slave States.
P.R. in ALL regimes.
#12 — What century before a response to # 1 shows up ???
What century before 14th Amdt, Sec. 2 (repeat Sec. 2) is noticed by the NPV fanatics ??? — those mere *denied* and *abridged* verb forms.
#12 Dear Susan Mvymvy,
It is absolutely false that the people had no vote for presidential electors in most States. At the time of the election, only 11 states had ratified the Constitution and New York failed to appoint any electors.
That leaves 10 States. Voters had a vote in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. They had no vote in Connecticut, New Jersey, South Carolina and Georgia.
6 of 10 is “most States”. Moreover these included the more populous States such that voters had the vote in the appointment of 44 of 69 presidential electors.
In 1788/9 the People chose the Representatives from all States. Based on election totals it is clear that the franchise for voting for the larger house of the legislature, and therefore for Congress was the same as voting for Presidential electors. Since the People chose all members of House of the Representatives, the People had a vote for presidential elector in most States and for almost 2/3 of the total electors.
The real solution is not NPV, but quadrupling the size of the House so that reps represent a smaller populace. As it is they represent the powerful and wealthy because they represent districts that are too big. Each rep would represent a smaller populace. This in turn would increase the number of electors in the college and reduce the disparity. Better to work with the system as it was created than to go to a messy convoluted machine like the NPV. Besides, we need better representation in the House anyhow.
In the nation’s first presidential election, five states—New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Massachusetts—permitted the people to vote for presidential electors.
17 –
Solution to what problem? NPV is intended as the solution to one and only one problem – the election of the president by any method other than a plurality of the popular votes cast nationwide. NPV would solve that problem.
Smaller CD’s would have no effect on the poisoning of American politics by the interests of corporate and individual wealth. Ever heard of “money seats” in Congress? These are given to freshman Congressmen, by both parties. They are on committees such as Banking and Finance, where the lobbying interests are strongest and lucre greatest. This is done to assure that they will receive sufficient financial backing in their reelection efforts two years hence. The financial backing they thus receive is not, by any stretch of the imagination, limited to the interests which reside in their CD’s. In fact, if you research the FEC database which details contributions made to and by Congressional campaigns, you’ll find that millions of dollars collected by Congressmen who have no significant opposition in their own reelection efforts are donated to the campaigns of other members of their party.
Moneyed interests recognize no artificial boundaries, my friend. A bought vote is a bought vote no matter who casts it and no matter where they live in the summer.
# 19 What percentage of the voters NOW are in the muddled middle ???
1928 42 D — 58 R
1929 Great Depression I starts.
1932 58 D — 42 R
How about lots more attention to the 1860 timebomb Prez election ???
NO shortage of EVIL folks who want their left/right tyrant stuff to take effect.
The EVIL ANTI-Democracy minority rule gerrymander systems —
U.S.A —
House of Reps.
Senate
E.C.
State/local —
All houses of all 50 State legislatures.
Many, many local regimes – in whole or part.
1/2 votes x 1/2 gerrymander areas [States/districts] = 1/4 CONTROL indirectly — way too difficult for the SCOTUS math morons to detect. Much worse in the U.S.A. Senate due to many below average small States.
P.R. and App.V.
#18 Susan Mvymvy, In Delaware one elector was chosen by the voters of each county.
You may be mixing this up with 1792 when the Delaware legislature did appoint the electors.