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.
You know the details. Many west Florida (Panhandle) voters are in another time zone. They did a u-turn away from polling places when they heard the media beating the drum how Gore had taken Florida. Panhandle is Republican. GWBush probably lost 5-10 thousand votes that way. Florida should never have been decided in the courts......blame the mass media.
"Let's see now. kerry wins 49 states by 50,000 votes each. Pres Bush wins Texas by 3,000,000 votes. BUSH WINS!"
-- No. Kerry wins CA by 5,000,000 votes.
I hope it will be as informative in the light of day as it is during the darkness.
There is a lot to be said about the EC. Of course, I really doubt we will have enough folks to agree on this, which helps. Of course, don't bet the farm on that observation.
BTW, good night /good morning
1962.
ROTFLMAO! Don't worry, I'm sure we'll find enough issues to bash each with :o)
And don't forget the more than 40,000 who voted in both New York and Florida. I doubt many of those votes were for Bush.
-PJ
That's nothing. Kerry wins 110% of the vote in Massachusetts.
That means Gore probably had at least 13-14,000 more net votes.
"Electoral College is great, There should be a limit on the number of electors from a state before a state needs to split into two. California is insane, that monster needs to be split into three states."
-- There was actually a movement in Northern California to split off in the early 1990s. It was during the drought, and the heavily-populated Southern half of the state got the legislature to approve higher water prices and water rationing in the North, while Southern Californians had no such restrictions or even higher prices. The two halves of the state are very different. Even in SoCal there's a diofference politically. San Diego is considered a Republican city, while L.A. is teeming with liberals.
My thoughts? Open this area of the Constitution up for actual change, and it'll be a disaster. I don't want to have any sort of bipartisan discussion about the EC issue until the Democrats lose this next election by a wide margin and realize they have to clean house. In fact, I will resist discussion of changes to the EC even if Democrats have won with it. The EC is one of our Founding Fathers' most brilliant ideas, and I am wary of anyone who wants to tinker with it.
-PJ
"At another point in history, I might tolerate this. As it stands, I call it treason. Did you know that in 1960 JFK lost the popular election, but won it with the Electoral College? Where were the Democrats calling for the EC's dissolution then?"
-- JFK DID win the popular vote, but only with a plurality, not a majority. He would have recieved a majority if it weren't for an electoral quirk in Alabama that cost him .4% of the vote and 6 EVs. In Alabama, the 11 Presidential Electors were directly elected. Due to the result of a state primary, five of the Democratic electors on the general election ballot were loyalists pledged to Kennedy and the remaining six were Free electors, not pledged to the Democratic national ticket. These six Unpledged electors cast their ballots for Harry Byrd (President) and Strom Thurmond (Vice President).
OK class, close but no cigar yet. Article 2 Sec. 1. First, it must be understood, on Nov 2 you will not be voting for a President, you will vote for an Elector, who will presumably, but not necessarily, vote for your Presidential candidate. Yes, there are state laws requiring Electors to vote as the state vote goes, but that is not Constitutional law. Two cases, one from NC, the other from West Virginia actually got to the Supreme Court, in both instances, SCOTUS ducked and ruled the question moot, in that an overwhelming majority had spoken and would be unaffected by a ruling.
Wise choice by the nine wise robes. Article II, sec 1, if there be a tie, the House of Representatives shall "chuse", and should that come up a tie, "then from the five highest on the List the said House shall shall in like manner chuse the President." In this incredibly unlikely event, votes shall be taken by states, each state having one vote. In that event, the person coming in second shall be Vice-President, save in another lotto odds tie, then, and only then does the Senate chime in to elect the Vice-President.
Now, a hypothetical exercise for the class: In Nov. a Republican has been elected by a comfortable margin, no Florida style dispute. Between Nov. and the meeting of the Electoral College in mid Dec. the President-elect dies in a tragic accident. (I am freely cribbing from Jeff Greenfield's underrated book, THE PEOPLE'S CHOICE). The Vice President actually is as dumb as a box of rocks, just to add to the fun. Who is the next President?
You, at the back of the room, stumbling in half drunk from last night and going "Duh, I don't know", you have accidentally got it right. The correct answer is, "NOBODY KNOWS". It will be whoever the body of totally unknown electors chooses, and so long as their choice is a natural born citizen, not a felon, they can elect my garbage man President. Care to argue otherwise, I am looking at my ever so handy copy of the Constitution. We have provided for Presidential disability, permanent or temporary, but NOTHING in the Constitution covers that period between election day and that day on which "Congress may determine the Time of chusing the electors and the day on which they shall give their Votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States.'
"If it isn't broken... But since they are open to changes, how about: every tax dollar paid by an individual during the year preceding election = 1 vote? Since most legislative business is about taxation and money, he who pays the most should by right have the most say. And whoso feels to be disenfranchised and underrepresented would be easily capable of remedying the situation by paying more taxes and buying himself greater electoral weight. It also could help with the deficits."
-- No, but I do think there should be a poll tax. And to make it politically feasible, we can make it a "reverse poll tax" by paying people not to vote. Basically, every registered voter who doesn't show up at the polls gets $50. Some peopel think that it's immoral to do such a thing, but I think it keeps out people who shouldn't be voting FROM voting. If you're willing to sell your right to vote for $50, you have no business deciding your representation.
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