Posted on 10/30/2004 6:12:52 AM PDT by CThomasFan
WASHINGTON - It could happen again: One candidate captures the popular vote, but his opponent wins the presidency in the Electoral College (news - web sites).
AP Photo
Such a replay of the 2000 election is an outcome of Tuesday's balloting that many Americans dread. It also could be the one that finally would drive the nation to a serious debate about the future of the Electoral College.
Proponents of changing the way the United States elects its presidents say another mixed result would help build support, particularly if the parties' roles were reversed.
There was no groundswell to abolish the Electoral College in 2000, perhaps because of the partisan standoff that continued more than a month after Election Day.
Several Democrats eagerly proposed scrapping the Electoral College in favor of direct election of the president, but Republican-controlled congressional committees wouldn't schedule hearings.
When a national commission led by former Presidents Carter and Ford explored voting changes in 2001, they focused on balloting and voting machines and omitted any discussion of the Electoral College.
Vice President Al Gore (news - web sites) won a half-million more votes nationwide than President Bush (news - web sites), who nevertheless became president by virtue of getting a majority of electoral votes.
This year, the possibility exists that Bush could be denied a second term despite winning the popular vote if Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) were to come up with enough narrow wins in battleground states, proponents of change in both parties said.
"That might cause Republican reconsideration just as there was Democratic angst in the last election," said GOP Rep. Jim Leach (news, bio, voting record) of Iowa, a longtime supporter of an overhaul of the Electoral College system.
Or, as Rep. Gene Green (news, bio, voting record), D-Texas, said: "That would be like having the shoe on the other foot."
Called outdated and antiquated by its critics, the Electoral College has endured despite four elections in which candidates have become president despite finishing second in the popular vote.
Most polls find majorities favor getting rid of it. "People think of it as somewhere between bad and stupid," said Harvard University history professor Alexander Keyssar. "But that's been true for 50 years."
Because it is enshrined in the Constitution, the Electoral College could be abolished only through a constitutional amendment, and more than 700 attempts have failed. Amending the nation's basic law requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by 38 states — no easy feat, especially because the Electoral College gives small states disproportionate influence. States have a minimum of three electoral votes, no matter their size, as does the District of Columbia.
Defenders of the college say the protection of small states is a good reason to keep it. Do away with the Electoral College, they say, and candidates would campaign exclusively in states with large populations, where vote totals would swamp those of small states.
"The Electoral College embodies two kinds of principles in electing a president: proportionality based on population and equality of states," said John Samples, director of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for Representative Government.
But the small states' argument runs headlong into the 2004 election campaign, said Leach. Polling techniques are so advanced that candidates ignore states large and small in the current system. "They are only going to states where the margins are razor-thin, whether that's New Hampshire, Iowa or Ohio," Leach said.
The latest effort to abolish the college — purely symbolic as it came in Congress' final weeks — was introduction of a constitutional amendment from Green and Rep. Brian Baird (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., to elect the president directly through popular vote.
Proposals generally fall into these categories:
_Abolish the Electoral College and institute direct election of the president, perhaps requiring the winner to gain 40 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
_Keep the college, but have states abandon the winner-take-all formula and allot electoral votes proportionally, as is under consideration in Colorado this year.
_Give the statewide winner two electoral votes and award one vote to the winner of each congressional district, the system used in Maine and Nebraska.
_Give an electoral vote bonus to the winner of the nationwide popular vote, which would eliminate most split decisions.
The closest the nation came to abolishing the Electoral College came after the 1968 election, when George Wallace's third-party candidacy raised fears that no one would win an electoral vote majority, said Keyssar, the Harvard professor.
In the end, Richard Nixon won the election, despite Alabama Gov. Wallace's 46 electoral votes. The next year, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment to replace the Electoral College with direct election. President Nixon endorsed it, but Sen. Sam Ervin, D-N.C., led Southern senators in a filibuster that doomed the amendment.
Despite the difficulty of changing it, Leach said the argument against the Electoral College is plain.
"We're advocating democracy around the world," he said. "Are we suggesting to anyone they have an electoral college?"
Yawn!
Unless you change it to give each county in the US one vote regardless of population. (The red/blue county map shows 90% are red) It really makes the election local and eliminates the power of the big cities.
I don't see much likelihood of Kerry winning the popular vote but losing the EC. If (GOD FORBID!, please God, do NOT let this happen!) Bush should win the popular vote but lose the EC, then it will be the exact reverse, party wise, of 2000 and I doubt there will be any movement to get rid of the EC, because everyone will see the (dis)advantage cuts both ways.
And anyway, it would require amending the Constitution, and the little states will NEVER go for it, liberal or conservative though their populations may be, in this they will be 100% united. And who can blame them? Who wants NY, CALI, TX bossing around the whole country?
We had very good founders of our country and they did the best they could to protect "states rights." Although a lot of that has vanished in the last 40 years we need to hang on to this as one way that states make a difference.
I live in Wisconsin and I do not want to be ruled by Liberal New York and California. Hell it is hard enough to be ruled by the People's Republic of Madison and it's satelite state the City of Milwaukee. If people abandoned the electoral college, then I want my state to leave the union or else I am moving to a state that would.
That's exactly what it is for.
Regardless of this argument, we are representative republic, not a democracy. This fact seems to be lost ignored.
The argument for getting rid of the EC is based on a flawed assumption, that the person who gets the majority of the popular vote "should" be president. The system was set up the way it was for so many reasons, but at the heart of it is that we are a republic, not a democracy. If we want to get rid of all state and local governments and everything is centrally run, then well a true decomcracy would be a better fit. But that's not what we have, or want. (well, maybe the rats want it)
a popular vote is a democracy. America is a representative republic.
Democracy = Mob Rule.
Popular vote = Mob Rule.
Will this happen? At some time. As mass ignorance spreads, and as demographics make America more and more stupid as the birth rate among the least educated nontaxpayers soar, and as the birth rate among the educated taxpayers stays very low, we will eventually see a democracy in America and have mob rule.
Dork Leach RINO alert!
If the Electoral College was abolished, I guess the US Senate would have to be abolished as well, as Wyoming and California both have two senators.
Over a bloody revolution, perhaps. We'll just change it back the way it was after we win.
I call it federally subsidized mass breeding. Give them government checks and government cheese and they will do the rest.
Thanks CThomasFan, the smaller states would never commit political and economic suicide by agreeing to end the Electoral College.
The founding fathers did not want the most populated states to dominate the smaller states. If that were not the case, the needs of the smaller states would be ignored.
Only someone, like my Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, who doesn't understand why the current electoral system works would support such a foolish change.
No. Not 'mob rule' but revolution and anarchy. I suffer 'democracy' (the rule of fools by fools) grudgingly. To change the rules to give the ignorant advantage is anathema. If there is to be war then let it begin here!
Some of the 'problem' has been brought on by the election of Senators mitigating the balance of powers among the States. Before we change a syustem inculcated in our Constitution, we must rigidly work within the system. Otherwise we are all mere 'progressives' blowing the political winds.
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