Unpopular vote: If you dump the Electoral College

ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE ^ | 8-11-2004 | Jeffry Gardner

[suzyq5558]

Next time you hear some free spirit say she wants to rid us of the Electoral College take her outside, look skyward and try to spot a big jet flying high overhead. Traveling east or west - it makes no difference.

Have her close her eyes and imagine her favorite presidential candidate on board the plane napping or reading a fascinating article in Newsweek or maybe plugged into an iPod listening to the whining lyrics of John Cougar Mellencamp

[R W Reactionairy]

Our forefathers were brilliant to put the electoral college in place. Without it, Philadelphia, NYC, Chicago, LA would choosing the President.

The electoral college is evidence of a belief that the states are actually states and not some sort of grossly subordinate subdivisions of political power.

The founders were indeed wise. "States rights" as something other than a code for racism should be a rallying cry. Then again maybe "Honest Abe" was just as much responsible for the current lamentable state of the Republic as FDR.

[Long Cut]

Thanks for the info! Do you perhaps have a link to the write-up?

[visualops]

You may say you understand it, but your proposal stinks IMHO.

[SunkenCiv]

Amazing... Hitlery has been in office another 2 3/4 years, and still hasn't done anything about the Electoral College -- something she said probably should be done, after Gore tried to steal the election.

[visualops]

Part of the problem I think is the tendency to think only in national terms. At the time the framers conceived of the EC, there wasn't that sort of mindset. I think we would have less problems (especially those brought on by socialist policies), if we had retained more of the states-in-a-union rather than union-with-states mindset.

[visualops]

I read about that at the site I quoted. I have to say I didn't know about Maine & Nebraska. It's not a bad idea at all.

[visualops]

I'm sure that data is available, but it makes my brain hurt thinking about gathering it ;^)

[brivette]

The blue is where the infection lies.

[dvwjr]

Originally posted by Long Cut :

"Were this system in place nationawide in 2000, the President would have won in a landslide. It would also, IMHO, be a better way to represent the people's wishes."

Well, no. A bigger Bush win, but not a "landslide". It would not have been Bush 271, Gore 267 with the all States using the "District" system currently used by both Maine and Nebraska. It would have been Bush 288, Gore 250.

A few here have brought up the idea of what would happen if the Electoral College was not based on a "winner take all" formula, but rather based on the district model used by Maine and Nebraska. In those States the winner of each Congressional district receiving the single electoral vote of the candidate who attains a plurality of the votes in said district are combined with the winner of the plurality of votes in the whole State receiving the two Electoral votes which represent that State's Federal Senators.

Now take a look at how the Presidential elections since 1960 would have fared if the 'winner take all' method had been replaced by the Maine/Nebraska district system of awarding electoral votes for President and Vice-President, that district selection system which was one of the norms for such selection in the United States until 1832.

Source: The UVA Center for Governmental Studies, Center for Politics: The Electoral College, page 47 (PDF page 9 of 13).

Note that Kennedy would have lost to Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, and that George W. Bush would still have won the 2000 presidential election by an even greater margin. The projected tie electoral college vote in the 1976 presidential election would have gone in favor of Jimmy Carter since the Democrats controlled over 26 State delegations. If you have time, check out the above UVA report, good background on the whole EC debate.

Unless you match up "pairs" of States which agree to go from winner-take-all to the District system, it will never happen en masse (pardon my French) as many hope. I hope that some States have the testicular fortitude to randomly choose an election every 100 years in which the Legislature reverts and appoints the presidential electors directly (as was the norm in the past) to keep the voters honest.

dvwjr

[Blood of Tyrants]

I would, IF THAT WAS THE WAY IT WAS DONE. However, there can be only two opponents in a baseball game and we are not talking baseball. Also, when the EC was set up, there were 65 representatives and 26 senators (2.5:1) and it was a good idea. But now there are 100 senators and 435 representatives (4.35:1)where the votes of just a very few states pretty much determine the whole outcome.

Reduce the ratio back to 2.5:1 so that the smaller states aren't completely overshadowed by the larger ones and I'll get back on board.

Either that or change the way that the US is represented to equal sized land areas instead of population.

[supercat]

Lets say you have 1 big state with 10 million people, and they all vote for Kerry. And you also have 9 small 'insignificant' states, each with 1 million people, and they all vote for Bush.

Although the EC tends to dilute the votes of people in highly-polarized areas, in many cases the things sought by such people are best sought at the state or local level.

If a proposed piece of legislation is supported by 75% of the people in a few cities comprising 67% of the population and not supported anywhere else, would it be better for the measure to be passed nationwide (with 50.25% of the vote) or better for it to be passed only in those places that actually want it?

The former approach would make 50.25% of the people "happy"; the latter approach would make 83% of the people happy. Which is better?

[VRWCer]

I think the EC is brilliant, and quite necessary, in order to ensure that all of our citizens have representation. It prevents the nasty liberals who fill our major metro areas from overriding the wishes of those of us in "flyover" country.

However, two tweaks would make it even better, IMHO...

1. Instead of each state being a "winner take all" situation, each state could give the popular winner two ECVs, but the rest of them would go to whomever won each congressional district. That way, the candidates would have to campaign for EVERY vote, and Republicans who live in states like CA and NY would still receive equal representation.

2. The military, IMHO, should have their own ECVs, rather than having to vote absentee in their home states. After all, they are the ones who will be under the command of the CIC, right? This way, they would never have to worry about their ballots being disallowed or uncounted, and their voices would count as a block of its own in the electing of our POTUS.

[supercat]

I am impressed that the electoral college concept, however, is really an inspired design. I really do like the idea that it forces the "gaming" of otherwise irrelevant blocks of the country. This is valuable, and is not to be dismissed lightly.

If there were a way to prevent 'cheating', a better approach in theory (the biggest problem being the difficulty of selling people on its statistical merits) would be to randomly select a small number of ballots from each Congressional district and cast that district's EV to the winner from those ballots. People would complain to no end about "disenfranchisement", though under such a system the actual likelihood of someone's vote making a difference would generally be much greater than at present.

Suppose, for example, that a district has 40,000 people, and each voter has a 75% chance of voting for Bush. The likelihood of any voter's ballot in that district swinging the district is essentially zero. Suppose, by contrast, that three ballots were chosen at random from the district with its EV going to the winner.

If a voter's ballot is chosen, the likelihood of that voter's ballot 'swinging' the election is the likelihood that the other two ballots are split Kerry-Bush. If 75% of the people favor Bush, this probability is 37.5% [there's a 9/16 chance of them both being Bush, and a 1/16 chance of both being Kerry]. The probability of a voter swinging the election is thus a little over 1 in 40,000. Taking only three ballots at random would probably be a little 'weak' statistically, since it would mean that a candidate with 75% support would have only an 84% chance of winning. On the other hand, it would mean that politicians would have an interest in trying to get additional voters even in areas where they already have 75% support.

[suzyq5558]

Some Americans are so dumbed down they have no clue we all live in a republic.

[suzyq5558]

2. The military, IMHO, should have their own ECVs, rather than having to vote absentee in their home states. After all, they are the ones who will be under the command of the CIC, right? This way, they would never have to worry about their ballots being disallowed or uncounted, and their voices would count as a block of its own in the electing of our POTUS.

I think this a wonderful tweak.I like it.

[suzyq5558]

Just walked in the door from manning the phones at RNCHQ here in Eugene,we were calling independents tonight,most calls were great but i had three,all on the same street that were terrible,one guy waits till im almost through leaving a message on his machine before picking up and calling me a f88king bush nazi,two others were terribly rude to me yelling at me to never call again before slamming the phone down. geeeeesh. everyone else was fun to talk to,I pray we can make Oregon Bush country this year,5000 votes was all we needed last election. thats real close in a totally liberal state like this!

[suzyq5558]

I will join you! So will everyone I know ,but I do not believe it will happen anytime soon much as hitlery may want it .

[suzyq5558]

Too true!

[VRWCer]

Thanks!

[Congressman Billybob]

Took me a while to track it down, and a deeply regret that the article is done in pdf, rather than in html. But here's the cite for my article, "Electoral College Reform by the Numbers," which is solid statistically, considering it was done for the American Academy of Actuaries. Here's the addy: http://www.contingencies.org/sepoct01/electoral.pdf If your interested in getting deeply into the subject, you'll like this article.

John / Billybob