The Electoral College
[This is a repost of an entry I wrote 4 years ago, in response to a question posed to a blogging group I belonged to. The question was, "Is it time for the U.S. to end the Electoral College? If so, in favor of what alternative system? If not, why is it still relevant and beneficial to the nation?" With support for efforts like the National Popular Vote rising, I thought it was a good time for a repost of this.]
I’ve actually talked a little bit abut this issue as far back as the 2000 election. Back then, I found a document on the web site of the Federal Elections Commission called “A Brief History of the Electoral College”. It hasn’t been updated to note the popular vs. electoral vote situation in the 2000 election itself, but it is a fascinating and educational look into the issues surrounding the creation of the Electoral College. Read that first before making up your mind.
This paper identifies two main requirements that the Electoral College imposes on candidates for the presidency:
- The victor must obtain a sufficient popular vote to enable him to govern, even if it’s not an absolute majority, and
- The popular vote must be sufficiently distributed across the country to enable him to govern.
What this means is that the winner has balanced regional support, even if that balance is tipped in favor of distribution rather than absolute numbers (as it was in 1888 and again in 2000).
The paper presents a number of pros and cons of the Electoral College and is a fairly balanced look at it, although it does come out in favor of it ultimately. I’d like to highlight just one of its points and add one of my own.
Minorities: With the Electoral College, the voice of minorities in this country is enhanced so that they cannot be so easily dismissed by candidates. Small minorities in a State can (and have) been able to be the difference between winning all of a State’s electoral votes or none. Without this clout, blacks, Hispanics, farmers, Iowans, or whatever other group you can come up with can have a larger voice in the matter, and this speaks to one of the ideas of America.
If the President was selected solely on the basis of popular vote, a candidate could simply ignore minorities who’s votes wouldn’t matter in the big picture. Getting a bare majority of the big city vote can be enough to get the electoral votes of California or New York, but then the candidate needs to appeal elsewhere in other states and among other groups of people to win the Presidency. If popular vote was all that mattered, the candidate could just continue to appeal to the wants & needs of those in highly concentrated population areas. This would not be in the best interest of a country that wants the President to be the President for everyone. Thus the Electoral College forces the issue of minority views into the national debate, which is good for all of us.
Voter Fraud: Under the current system, a candidate gets the same number of electoral votes for a state, whether he takes 50%+1 of the popular vote for that state or 100% of it. Thus any attempts to rig an election in a state are pointless after a majority is reached. Therefore, in order to have an impact nationally, the fraud must be widespread, in multiple states, rather than allowing it to work with only a few “friendly” areas involved. This makes voter fraud less of a viable tactic, and diminishes its impact when used.
Again, the paper linked above has quite a bit more, but these two issues are the ones that are one the top of my list. The paper ends this way:
The fact that the Electoral College was originally designed to solve one set of problems but today serves to solve an entirely different set of problems is a tribute to the genius of the Founding Fathers and to the durability of the American federal system.
I’d have to agree.
Filed under: Doug • Government • Polls
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But also the 50% + 1 rule makes voter fraud much more effective if you can deploy your fraud strategically in key states.
Indeed, although this requires you to predict where the vote will be close; otherwise you waste your time/money. You still need to spread out your resources to differing states rather than mount a massive strike in a couple of big cities.
What the U.S. Constitution says is “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.”
Neither of the two most important features of the current system of electing the President (namely, that the voters may vote and the winner-take-all rule) 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, it was necessary to own a substantial amount of property in order to vote, and only 3 states used the winner-take-all rule (awarding all of a state’s electoral vote to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state). Since then, as a result of changes in state laws, 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 winner-take-all rule is used by 48 of the 50 states.
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
Quoting Laura Kirshner of Washington, DC
. . . The NAACP voted recently to endorse a national popular vote for president. Here’s why:
The influence of minority voters has decreased tremendously as the number of battleground states dwindles. In 1976, 73% of blacks lived in battleground states. In 2004, that proportion fell to a mere 17%.
Battleground states are the only states that matter in presidential elections. Campaigns are tailored to address the issues that matter to voters in these states.
Safe red and blue states are considered a waste of time, money and energy to candidates. These “spectator” states receive no campaign attention, visits or ads. Their concerns are utterly ignored.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. In 2004 two-thirds of the visits and money were focused in just six states; 88% on 9 states, and 99% of the money went to just 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people were merely spectators to the presidential election. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,181 state legislators — 439 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 742 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 21 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Appreciate the electoral history lesson, but I have to disagree on some points in your argument for a national popular vote.
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.
If you look at a county-by-county breakdown of the election results this year, you’ll see that Florida and Ohio, which gave their electoral votes to Obama, are actually quite red. The candidates may not have taken anything for granted with their campaigning, and may have indeed advertised in difficult markets, but these states represent a microcosm of what could easily happen with a national popular vote. Big cities did, in fact, control the outcome. Your assertion is false.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
I’m not suggesting that some votes get more or less valuable in a national popular vote, only that the volume of votes associated with big cities make them much more valuable, as with Ohio and Florida. And voter fraud in these cities wouldn’t just affect the state’s electoral outcome; it would affect the nations. Only enough fraud to get 50%+1 is required and needed; any more is overkill. In a national popular vote situation however, that overkill works to subvert, not just one state’s votes, but votes from elsewhere as well. The Electoral College is a firewall against widespread voter fraud.
The NAACP voted recently to endorse a national popular vote for president.
Then the NAACP is doing a disservice to their constituency. Blacks make up ~12% of the population. In a national popular vote, a candidate could appeal to whites, and not even to all of them, ignore black voters, and win the election. Now, ignoring an entire population like that might not be advisable for a President who needs to govern for all the people, but as far as getting elected, minorities, or a "parliamentary" coalition of racial groups, are all a candidate would need to win.
This would server to increase racial tensions in national politics, and decrease the affect blacks can have on the national election, especially in states with a higher concentration of those voters. Increased attention to voters in a southern state with more blacks than the national average means the candidates must appeal to them to get the state’s electoral votes, which benefits blacks in all states; whether it be a battleground or a "spectator" state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
This is a little misleading. Of the 4 times that this has happened, the first two (1824 and 1876) were special cases (no majority electoral winner in the former, and contested electoral votes in the latter resulting in, again, no majority, and the Civil War played a role). The only two clear-cut cases, 1888 and 2000, fit your description. So only once in a hundred years does this happen.
Also note that this article states that in 1888, Grover Cleveland’s popular vote majority was mostly regional, whereas Harrison’s popular vote was much broader, which is precisely the Electoral College’s primary benefit. As I noted in the post, it assures broader support across the country in a close election. History will have to decide whether or not that was true for George W. Bush, but this map really does make it appear that Gore’s appeal was, again, more regional and, indeed, big city based. It buttresses my point that big cities and their metropolitan areas would hold sway over vast swaths of this country should we have a national popular vote.
The National Popular Vote, it seems to me, appeals to people who don’t really understand the Electoral College and the benefits it brings. Legislators who promote it are either ignorant of history or pandering to those who are.