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Called outdated and antiquated by its critics, the Electoral College has endured despite four elections in which candidates have become president despite finishing second in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?"
Also, if you add the over 1 million absentee ballots that were not counted in CA, because counting them would not change the state-wide outcome.
What we really need to work on is a system of voter identification that encourages people to vote (regardless of their affiliation) while eliminating fraud.
That would go a long way toward restoring faith in politics without tinkering with the Constitution.
Of course, the 'Rats would never go along, because it eliminates a long time election tactic of theirs, dating back to the 19th century: Tammany Hall in New York - Huey Long in Louisiana - Richard Daley in Chicago - ACORN in 2004
Such an amendment wouldn't even get a simple majority of the senators. I really seriously anywhere close to the required 38 states(3/4ths of the total number) would ratify.
We DEFINITELY DO NOT want our President chosen by the ignorant welfare types and leftists that dominate our major inner-cities. The liberals are ALWAYS harping about "leveling the playing field". Well, our Founding Fathers GENIUS is evident in their "leveling the playing field" for citizens that live in less populated states within our great country through the Electoral College. If the liberals EVER win at the ballot box on this, then it will be time for us to resort to the CARTRIDGE BOX.
We lost a large part of our republic when the senators were allowed to run for popular vote. The electoral college is the only bulwark remaining between us and dictatorship. Mob rule destroys any protection for the minority, a necessity for a potential authoritarian leader.
Exactly. It will never happen..the two methods of amendign the Constitution, require either 2/3 or 3/4 majorities..and if you look at the number of "small" states, and the large states controled byt he GOP..you can't get to that number...Remember after 2000, Hillary Clinton made a big deal about it..and it died two days later. Can you imagine Daschl;e going back to SDak and telling the peple there that he wants to abolish the EC..consigning SDak to insignificance in future presidential politics..
This is the reason democracy doesn't ever seem to work for 3rd world countries...
It's because real DEMOCRACY can't work! As soon as the lazy masses (in a REAL democracy) figure out that they can vote themselves the national treasury or the wealth of the minority of productive people the whole system crashes.
This was the genius of our founding fathers when they set up a republic and NOT A DEMOCRACY.
When this country was founded the ability to vote was considered a privilege that needed to be earned in some way, today voting is considered a "right" and that is the fundamental problem with our country for the last 50 years.
As I recall back in December 2000, Daschle said he would oppose an amendment to abolish the Electoral College. Anyway, the EC isn't as skewed as the US Senate. Why should CA with 35 million people have just 2 senators? Doesn't that violate the "one man one vote principle" (that is nowhere to be found in the Constitution)?
If we find a forming nation that is composed of several FREE and INDEPENDENT states, then I hope we will.
Amen! I have not problem with Kerry winning the election with Bush winning the popular vote. America is a republic, if we can keep it.
That said, I really like the idea of allocating one elector for each congressional district and two to the state as a whole. It keeps the spirit of the Electoral College while making the election more competitive and reducing the chance of ties or controversy.
A Bush landslide Tuesday night would eliminate all of this pinhead posturing in a hurry.
It will be a cold day in hell when people want their president elected by New York and California.
The Electoral College preserves a strong, two-party system that forces both candidates towards the center -- a good thing as "the center" is not static (we have been trending more conservative for the past 30 years).
It also prevents radical changes to our laws and systems. Confidence that our legal system will not change radically is one of the reasons investment is sdo high in our nation.
Weak third parties only prevent the nation from coalescing behind a single, strongly supported winner.
Anyone who wants to eliminate the electoral college has no grasp of history whatsoever.
DEMOCRACY= 2 lions and a lamb deciding what's for dinner
I would bet that every single one of those advocating the doing away with the Electoral College are Democrats. They know that if this were done, there would never again be a Republican president. New York and California, and other large-population states (with a couple exceptions: Texas and Florida come to mind, and the latter is problematic) crawling with Democrats would elect all future presidents.
That's why our state (VA) is using laptop computers in schools instead of textbooks....so they can rewrite history as frequently as necessary to keep it in step with the NEA.
Democracy is what they have in California with their love affair with I & R.....the tyranny of the majority rules.
That is hilarious!
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