of the beholder - in the case of presidential candidates, the voter. But voters in America, since Article II, Section One of the Constitution was adopted, have been casting their ballots not for president, but for electors.- was composed of thirteen large and small states jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government,
- contained only 4 million people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable),
- believed, based on the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and
- felt that "gentlemen" should not campaign for public office (The saying was, "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office.") (Please note the web site of Federal Election Commission).
In the late 18th century, these might have been valid arguments for creating such a system as the Electoral College. But those arguments carry no validity today and for that reason, the system as it stands should be abolished.
This is not to say that individual states no longer jealously guard their rights. Citizens of each state own the right to elect their local and state leaders, and choose who they send to represent them on the national level in Congress. But, were it not applicable prior to 1865, certainly the outcome of the Civil War demonstrated that the union of the American states, and the federal government elected to represent that union, was and is the engine that drives our standing in a world that grows smaller every day.
We are now connected, by transportation and communication, not only between village and city, but state to state and nation to nation. Our population is no longer waiting in anticipation for the elite, more educated leaders of the community to report back from the halls of government as to what is best for our nation. Citizens, on an individual basis, are now expected to not only know what is happening within those halls, but to control them through the exercise of selecting our representatives
Not only that, but federal law now trumps state law in almost every conceivable situation in which the two might clash. Therefore, each American deserves an equal say in who represents him or her on a national level. And the design of the Electoral College prevents this equality.
Consider the following: Activists and campaign volunteers, both Republican and Democrat, have stressed to potential voters that, no matter what your status in life, your vote counts just as much as that of anyone else. Were it only true. But based on the 2000 Census, and the Electoral College's allocation based on population, an individual voter in Wyoming carries approximately four times as much weight as a voter in California. This makes one wonder what is really the value in the concept of "one person, one vote."
The answer is, where presidential elections are concerned, the concept is false. Our current election race offers a prime example. Michigan, considered a "swing state" due to its high population, has been "written off" by the McCain campaign because, based on the opinion of McCain's handlers and the media pundits, Michigan is "unwinnable." So Senator McCain has pulled all of his campaign staff from Michigan to concentrate on other "swing states" such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida.
In other words, the voters of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida will decide the presidential election for the entire country, and the voters of Michigan have now been informed that, for all intents and purposes, their votes don't matter and they can stay home. More importantly, the pundits will be calling the election before the polls even close in our nation's most populous state, thus rendering California's citizens' votes meaningless, since the Republicans will have conceded that state based on its electors' Democratic tendencies.
There have been many anomalies in Presidential elections throughout our history, most of which would have been avoided through a true popular vote. In 1836, one party, the Whigs, ran three different candidates in three separate sections of the country. The purpose was to ensure a Whig majority in the Electoral College by appealing to the particular desires of each demographic. The plan was foiled when the electors chose Democratic-Repu
The means through which our electors vote today do not necessarily preclude such a bizarre scenario from reoccurring. It is possible that an Electoral College could select Barack Obama, but refuse to recognize Joe Biden, thus turning the election of a Vice-President to the Senate. Such a scenario would certainly render the President impotent, because in our party system (which the founders were trying to avoid), the candidate's first and most telling decision is that of a running mate.
There are a number of reasons to believe that this system should be scrapped, but the most important is its inability to accurately reflect the will of the American people. This argument was made by Republicans in 1992 when the party noted that Bill Clinton did not win a majority of the popular vote, but was a clear winner in the Electoral College. And it is true he did not win the majority of votes - but he won more popular votes than either George H.W. Bush or Ross Perot, thus claiming a clear victory under the most "democratic" of principles.
The 2000 election also produced a winner who did not garnish the majority of the popular vote. The contrast, and the most telling reason why the current system should be abolished, is that the declared winner, George W. Bush, did not even win the most votes. Democrat Al Gore, according to the FEC, won over 500,000 more popular votes than did our current President (see FEC/GOV/2000). It will be left for history to decide how this travesty has affected our nation and our world.
In conclusion, I would submit that, in spite of our Constitution's creation of a republican form of government, an amendment allowing a democratically-
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16 comments:
Reed, it's good to be back.
I think you did a good job of explaining your point of view. However, I think I just disagree with some of your premises.
For instance, despite Deputy Director Kimberling's list of challenges facing the new nation, these are not the issues that most concerned the Founding Fathers, as near as I can tell. Having studied law and the Constitution, I am well aware of the shortcomings that existed and affected circumstances for our first statesmen. However, as I said in my post, they still wanted the best, most fair, and safest method by which to combine both the rights of the people and the rights of the states in the electoral process for president and vice president. Many of the "backward" policies they worked on and within (like patronizing to slaveholders out of perceived necessity) were taken into account and discussed in others of the Federalist Papers, but Federalist 68 surely and clearly shows their intent (within these cultural constraints). Because times have changed, and thus, cultural norms and communication capabilities, educational improvements for the masses, and other "civilities" now abound, we are certainly capable of being better quality voters than the general masses were then. But that doesn't change the fundamental reasoning laid out in Federalist 68. I suggest that the differential education, involvement, and political concerns between electors and Joe Sixpack(s) - (God, I hate that term)- is still important enough that the Founders would write similar provisions, today.
Next, the argument that a Wyoming voter's vote is worth four times that of a California voter's is a bit misleading. The simple fact is that when electoral votes are divided into a state's population, this vote-value differential appears true because the Founders and Constitutional amendments have made it a rule that even the smallest state (by population) gets at least 3 electoral votes. However, your argument would also suggest that the representation in Congress is also unfair from state to state (and you are free to make this argument, but that's a whole new kettle of fish). The number of electoral votes for each state is the same as the total number of Congresspersons. This figure is based upon population, but is also subject to the "minimum" rule for tiny-population states. Why? Because without such minimums, some states would have virtually no representation in Federal affairs. Because of this fact, there exists a countervailing force to the "Wyoming" overrepresentation in voting: the citizens of Wyoming pay the same federal tax rates as do the citizens of California, but they don't get the same per capita returns from the government. Let's face it, there are many fewer interstate highways and other federally funded infrastructure things (like federal courts, and the costs of FBI offices and military bases, for instance)in low population states. Wyoming residents' tax dollars are disproportionately spent in larger population areas. The best equalizer I can imagine in a case like this is to make a Wyoming voter's vote just a little bit more individually important than a California voter's vote. California (and, thus, it's voter) still exercises a great deal more influence over federal policies than Wyoming.
Finally, the argument that states become irrelevant because of "swing state" power, is not logical. Saying that Michigan's votes are no longer important is not true. McCain pulled out of Michigan because he felt he could not make further gains enough to change the balance of votes between Democrats and Republicans. That does not mean that Michigan has lost its electoral votes, or even that McCain has lost Republican votes. He just prophesied that he cannot achieve majority and that the Democrats will win Michigan's electors on that basis. If his attitude minimizes the Michigan voters' impetus to vote, that's McCain's fault. But here's the deal: This same circumstance could happen if the system were based strictly on popular vote counts. If the Republican ticket doesn't believe it can win the popular vote in a state, they will be inclined to expend valuable resources in other states where they might win. No matter what, the popular vote will be different from region to region, so how and when it is counted is not different under each system. The substantive difference is that, under the Electoral College, once the state totals are tallied, the losing ticket's votes are no longer relevant in the national race to win. The structure of the Electoral College doesn't make a state irrelevant (no state is ever irrelevant), but it might make candidates shift resources elsewhere more completely than they would under a popular vote system. Still, I think that difference is minor, and the benefits of the Electoral College outweigh this small "detriment."
Thanks for your comments. I'll comment on the relevance of Federalist 68 in my response to your post. But argument regarding the power of swing state voters, and the resulting concentration of candidates' resources, is entirely logical under the current system. If we are relying on the voters to choose wisely their "electoral college" representatives, then it behooves the candidates to spend time in each state, understanding the unique problems and challenges affecting the diverse regions and populations.
When a candidate "writes off" a state, the subliminal message is, "I don't really care that your jobs have been lost, since it doesn't appear you're going to vote for me anyway."
A one-person, one-vote system changes the dynamic completely. Barack Obama's attempts to sway voters in nominally red states, and his apparent success, reinforce the notion that, with enough resources generated and an intelligent debate, voters can buck the trends - but it appears the Republicans are dubious about such.
Ultimately, though, and what you did not address, is the problem of a President achieving office without a mandate. Too often in our history, a man has ascended into office without the support of the majority. And I would submit that, were it not for the tragedy of September 11, it's unlikely that George W. Bush would have achieved a second term.
The people deserve the right, and should by all rights carry the responsibility, of choosing their leaders based on democratic principles, and that should include a popular vote.
Reed,
I still don't see the difference between the one-vote system and the Electoral College with regard to swing states. If and when a candidate "writes off" a state, it is not the system that is to blame, but the candidate.
Expending resources (as you point out that Obama is doing to buck trends)in highly contested states is exactly what a candidate SHOULD do regardless of the voting system. If McCain had chosen to shift his campaign policies to better appeal to Michiganders, and to expend more dollars in advertising and other resources, he might have changed the balance in Michigan. His decision to pull out was based upon his own calculus that he could not change that balance. His fault, not the Electoral College system. It would have come out exactly the same way under a popular vote system.
I DID address the issue of candidates not achieving a mandate through winning a majority of the popular vote. I said this fact is one reason the popular vote still counts under the E.C. system. The greater the proportion the ticket wins, the more relevant is the mandate of the people. Incidentally, in a system where more than two parties are permitted to run, it is much more difficult for the winner to gain a popular majority (consider Ross Perot and Ralph Nader) without winning by a landslide. As you correctly pointed out, while landslides happen, they are not the norm - so most presidents elect do not achieve the majority mandate.
Your closing comment also does not change my opinion. Yes, everyone's vote should count...and it does. As I pointed out, unless there occurs either a very rare faithless elector situation, or the extreme case of one party winning just the most populous eleven states, the majority of the popular vote STILL determines the new president. Therefore, as I see it, the only detriments to the Electoral College are these two potentialities, and the benefits over a popular vote system are simply more important.
That was one of the most convoluted "arguments" I have ever read. There was no thought, no process and no connections. The conclusions weren't logical. In fact they showed a very narrow thought process. An example: All States matter. PA, OH, and FL aren't electing the President without the other states doing their voting and/or putting those three states in a position to matter. Those states are only in that position because they could go either way. Just ask Truman in 48 if those states mattered.
It sounded like a bar room debate. In fact it sounded like a bar room debate at 1:30 AM.
I agree with anonymous in one regard - Dano and I have had intelligent arguments at 1:30 a.m. after much imbibing. But I believe anonymous has had one too many merlots by the time that argument begins.
If one wishes to point out fallacies in arguments, one needs to also point out alternatives. Anonymous, you have not done that. If this debate does not strike you as logical or intelligent, then I pray, please bless us with some intelligent logic. Until you do, I can't argue pro or con with your point, because I have no idea what it is.
Anonymous, I apologize because you did make one salient point - all states matter. But all states are really made up of citizens who are individual voters. And I haven't heard the candidate or the pundit mention Montana, North Dakota, Hawaii, Kentucky, Tennessee, Oklahoma........I could go on. The point is that, once a campaign foregoes a state due to its "unwinnability", the campaign leaves the popular vote in the opponent's camp. But in a popular vote scenario, and in a close election, the 250,000 vote swing that could be produced by a state like Oklahoma could make the difference between winning and losing.
Okay, so apologized and addressed your one point. What else is it that you find so disgusting?
I think Reed is right. We need to change it to one vote per county and quit letting the population centers dictate how the rest of us live. You want to be liberal in your town. That's fine but stop forcing your will on those of us who want to live and be left alone.
Did anyone notice how red the country is on the county by county vote? Something needs to change.
See this link.
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
You have to scroll down just a little to see this year's map. What is really interesting is how much more red is in it compared to certain other years.
Here is a better link by county on the by county vote map by the way.
Did I write that right? LOL
1 vote per county. Don't let the digs of the cities tell country folk how to live.
http://images.newsmax.com/misc/2008_Election_Map.jpg
http://images.newsmax.com/misc/2008_Election_Map.jpg
Try that again
OK it won't put in the whole link. Everything is there except the last two letters which is pg so copy and paste in you address bar then ad pg after the j and you should find it.
Anonymous, I fear you're misreading my argument. No where do I suggest that we should scrap the current state-by-state system for a county-by-county system. Such would be even more unrepresentative than the current system.
The only logical alternative to the electoral college system is a popular vote, which as you know, would have resulted in a sweeping victory for the "liberal" candidates to which you refer. Census data and the rolls of both major political parties confirm that there were more registered Democrats than Republicans in the U.S. prior to President-elect Obama's phenomenal voter registration success. Now the gap is even wider. Time will tell whether that means we lean more to the left in politics, but it does reflect accurate registration data.
Reed, don't forget that the most listened to radio announcer in America, whose audience is probably 90% conservative or conservative leading, led a voter registration effort to have Republicans register as Democrats during this primary season. While I'm confident his efforts had not nearly the impact of an organization such as ACORN. I mean what homeless guy can give up a tuna fish sandwich for filling out 30 voter registration cards after all. There were efforts aloft and political strategy reasons from the right which made it beneficial for conservatives to register as Democrats.
Exit polling data shows this as proff. Even though Drudge Report today linked to an article that "proved" Clinton would have won by a greater margin had she been running -- according to exit polling data. That data fails in its analysis. A more through analysis of the data shows a vast voter block missing from the exit polls, and that is the evangelical Christian vote. Those voters, according to the exit polling data, stayed home or did not vote for president. That is one reason why prognosticators predicted massive turnout and they were wrong. They assumed the normally reliable evangelical Christains would turn out to vote -- they always have in the last 20 years.
Turns out, not so much this time.
Despite my above arguement in the registered party arguement, those who register as Democrats are traditionally less likely to turn out to vote than Republicans. Turns out this election was the exception to the turnout tendancies. But a breakdown of the exit polls again on race show that a massive turnout (relative to previous years) by blacks really tipped the scale. I can only say from bits and pieces that I've picked up in news storis, radio shows and personnal experiences, the pressure was enormous in the black community to turn out to vote for Obama.
As for the electoral college versus popular vote, as someone stated this morning, if an alien were to land on this planet and look at a red/blue map of the united states broken down by who won each county -- they would think McCain won in a landslide. Maybe we should go a county electoral college system. :) Just joking, but I'd thought I'd argue for the hardcore Republicans here since they seem somewhat outnumbered I'm just a contrary sob. :)
Jesus, Twilley, would you and your gun-toting peers get off of this "county by county" count down? It has absolutely nothing to do with population demographics, or our argument. There are counties in the midwest with less than two people per square mile - and I guarantee at least one of them voted for McCain. That's not the point. In this election, the "people" spoke not only in popular vote, but overwhelmingly in electoral vote. So don't blame the system, blame your leaders for dropping the ball so badly that America had no choice but to turn to a new road. In regards to your "standard bearers" who encouraged Republicans to register as Democrats, well, what an idiotic idea that proved to be. I wonder how many of them watched the debates, watched Sarah and Katie, and decided to vote their new "party"?
At any rate, it's a done deal. You can say, okay, I'll give him a chance, or you can do what conservatives have done since 1993 and blame this election on Bill Clinton.
Reed,
What part of the "just joking" or :) didn't you get in my suggestion of county by county voting?
98 % of my post was warning againt drawing your conclusions based on voter registration data. There's all kinds of political science reason why drawing a semi- or hopeful conclusion of a population swinging left in politics in this nation will happen in future elections. It certainly did in this election.
I've said to some of my friends, as have many high-profile conservatives (including "my standard-bearers" as you call them Glenn Beck and that Rush guy), that I will give Obama a chance. I think you'll find many conservatives will have the exact opposite reation that liberals did at the election of W.
I think that's a philosophical difference. I've never heard a conservative icon or celebrity say if a Democrat wins that they were leaving the country. I've heard it many times from high-profile liberals say they would leave the country if a Republican won. Of course they all stayed put after the re-election of Bush, unfortunately.
I hope that Obama succeeds. I hope he restores capitalism that has been destroyed by the Bush administration. I hope he restores the constitution that has been destroyed by Bush and his forebearers the last 100 years (along with Congress and the courts). I HOPE for CHANGE. Can he do these things? Yes he can, probably in a pretty good position to do so. Will he do it? I HOPE so, but we'll just have to wait and see.
My second graph above should have read:
98 % of my post was warning againt drawing your conclusions based on voter registration data. There's all kinds of political science reason why it's not a good idea to draw a semi- or hopeful conclusion that we will continue to swing left in politics in this nation in future elections. It certainly did in this election.
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