Posted on 08/28/2004 11:34:36 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
When Republican delegates nominate their presidential candidate this week, they will be doing it in a city where residents who support George Bush have, for all practical purposes, already been disenfranchised. Barring a tsunami of a sweep, heavily Democratic New York will send its electoral votes to John Kerry and both parties have already written New York off as a surefire blue state. The Electoral College makes Republicans in New York, and Democrats in Utah, superfluous. It also makes members of the majority party in those states feel less than crucial. It's hard to tell New York City children that every vote is equally important - it's winner take all here, and whether Senator Kerry beats the president by one New York vote or one million, he will still walk away with all 31 of the state's electoral votes.
The Electoral College got a brief spate of attention in 2000, when George Bush became president even though he lost the popular vote to Al Gore by more than 500,000 votes. Many people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters themselves, but by 538 electors. It's a ridiculous setup, which thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis. There should be a bipartisan movement for direct election of the president.
The main problem with the Electoral College is that it builds into every election the possibility, which has been a reality three times since the Civil War, that the president will be a candidate who lost the popular vote. This shocks people in other nations who have been taught to look upon the United States as the world's oldest democracy. The Electoral College also heavily favors small states. The fact that every one gets three automatic electors - one for each senator and a House member - means states that by population might be entitled to only one or two electoral votes wind up with three, four or five.
The majority does not rule and every vote is not equal - those are reasons enough for scrapping the system. But there are other consequences as well. This election has been making clear how the Electoral College distorts presidential campaigns. A few swing states take on oversized importance, leading the candidates to focus their attention, money and promises on a small slice of the electorate. We are hearing far more this year about the issue of storing hazardous waste at Yucca Mountain, an important one for Nevada's 2.2 million residents, than about securing ports against terrorism, a vital concern for 19.2 million New Yorkers. The political concerns of Cuban-Americans, who are concentrated in the swing state of Florida, are of enormous interest to the candidates. The interests of people from Puerto Rico scarcely come up at all, since they are mainly settled in areas already conceded as Kerry territory. The emphasis on swing states removes the incentive for a large part of the population to follow the campaign, or even to vote.
Those are the problems we have already experienced. The arcane rules governing the Electoral College have the potential to create havoc if things go wrong. Electors are not required to vote for the candidates they are pledged to, and if the vote is close in the Electoral College, a losing candidate might well be able to persuade a small number of electors to switch sides. Because there are an even number of electors - one for every senator and House member of the states, and three for the District of Columbia - the Electoral College vote can end in a tie. There are several plausible situations in which a 269-269 tie could occur this year. In the case of a tie, the election goes to the House of Representatives, where each state delegation gets one vote - one for Wyoming's 500,000 residents and one for California's 35.5 million.
The Electoral College's supporters argue that it plays an important role in balancing relations among the states, and protecting the interests of small states. A few years ago, this page was moved by these concerns to support the Electoral College. But we were wrong. The small states are already significantly overrepresented in the Senate, which more than looks out for their interests. And there is no interest higher than making every vote count.
Making Votes Count: Editorials in this series remain online at nytimes.com/makingvotescount.
Better than that, divide Alaska into two, Texas into five, and California into three.
Coastal California could comprise the the coast from just above SF down to the border in a strip 30 miles wide.
Northern and Southern California can be divided in two.
Exactly! The Fed Gov't does not govern the citizens of the US, it governs the States of the US. This is why we have an Electoral College. Are the NY Times really this dumb or are they acting?!?
Hell no. Alaska is one of the least populated states. Why should a state with fewer people than the average congressional district get four senators and another congressmen by splitting itself?
The US should not abolish the Electoral College. There´s no need to, after all, it´s a Republic. BUT, the number of delegates from each state should be proportional to the number of citizens (more than it is today)!
Because I think it would be funny!
Alaskans are very conservative. Two more conservative senators and additional conservative congressman would do wonders for the country.
That would be easy. Do away with the electors for each senate seat. That way the electoral vote of each state would be equal to the number of congressional districts. Read my previous post #71 to find out why that is not advisable.
The Democrats (represented very strongly by the NY Times) want to be able to win elections just by having the high population areas, which are mostly democrat, win the election for them.
There is no other purpose in their continued arguments about the Electoral College.
Since 2/3 of the states would have to radify it after 2/3 of the senate.....it isn't going to happen. (someone correct me if these numbers are wrong).
It's 3/4'ths not 2/3'rds of the states needed for ratification. It is 2/3'rds of both the House and the Senate which are necessary to propose an amendment. I really doubt the senators from the smallest 1/3 or even 1/2 of the states would vote for such a proposal.
It would be a good start. I almost can see the headlines of the foreign newspapers and magazines a few days after the election if the winner does not get the popular vote...
"Many people realized then for the first time that we have a system in which the president is chosen not by the voters themselves, but by 538 electors."
-- That's because they don't teach the Constitution in schools anymore.
I guess the NYT would rather have presidential candidates offer political handouts in America's largest cities and tell everyone in flyover country to go to hell.
Exactly. If the EC were abolished, no GOP candidate could ever again be elected President, barring some economic catastrophe like in the Carter years. The campaign would be centered around the national media markets of L.A, Chicago, and NYC. Guess who comes out ahead? Its not about making every vote count, its about making it easier for a liberal Democratic presidential candidate to ignore the rest of the country. And that is why the EC will remain intact as a political institution.
Exactly. This trend is very troublesome and always seems to happen in states that go Republican for president. It's stealthy all right and presented as enhancing democracy. I don't see any "popular" efforts to split the electoral votes in RAT states such as California.
You obviously did not read the linked post in my answer. The Electoral College protects against a skewed geographical distribution of support for a candidate even at the expense of sometimes electing the candidate that gets fewer popular votes. It also protects against voter fraud especially from regions where one party is overwhelmingly dominant like New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Considering that the USA has the second oldest continuously existing government in the World, it is irrelevant whether foreign journalists understand how it works. The system has worked over 216 years during which time France for example has gone through five republics plus a reinstatement of monarchy.
I have two words for "people in other nations."
The final word is "'em."
Quit changing the way the United States does business because of what "they" think! We will execute murderers if we want. We will not cripple our industries unilaterally to allow other nations to catch up with us in the name of preventing "global warming." We will prevent homosexuals from marrying if it offends our sensibilities. And all of you outsiders who don't like it are free to stay where you are and not to crawl, skip, or swim across our borders to live here!
At first: I have read your linked post.
Secondly, I think that abolishing the senatorial votes in the EC would be a good start.
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