The Real Electoral College Reform

American Thinker ^ | November 29, 2016 | Bruce Walker

[Kaslin]

The familiar whining about the popular vote in presidential elections and the implicit anachronism of the Electoral College ought to be turned on its head by constitutional conservatives. The greatest problem of politics and government in our country today is Washington, and the only answer to that problem is the restoration of true federalism, making state governments a vital player in national elections.

The Constitution conferred three special powers on state legislatures to make sure that the federal government was held in check: enacting constitutional amendments, choosing members of the Senate, and choosing the method of selecting presidential electors.

Until 1824, in every state of the union, it was the state legislatures who directly chose all presidential electors, which is the reason electoral histories show no "popular vote" at all until 1824, and even then, some states had voters choose electors, and some state legislatures chose the electors directly. Gradually state legislatures changed the method of choosing electors so that these individuals were directly elected by voters. As with the "reform" of having senators elected directly, the "reform" of having voters choose electors has removed the vital check states had on an overbearing federal government.

[x]

When a state is gerrymandered to favor one party that party will have more sway in the EC. I think that inevitably ends in disaster.

Sure. If I create a district that gives 80% of its vote to your candidate, and four surrounding districts that give my candidate 55% of the vote, then I win 4 to 1. That won't work. Tinker with the Electoral College and it's likely to be scrapped entirely.

The article writers idea seems to be to have state legislators choose the electors. That won't happen either. He's under a lot of illusions about the character of state legislators. Why would they all of a sudden step up and become infinitely wise and courageous philosopher kings entitled to chose our leaders for us?

[Reily]

Constitutionally they are entitled to be “Philosopher King’s” and reward the electors to ever they want if they choose to do so!

Of course It won’t happen!

[OrangeHoof]

I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough. My lopsided comment was about counties, not congressional districts and I think, nationwide, Trump got over 70% of the counties. Most Republicans do. Congressional districts would be a lot closer but it would be an interesting math project for somebody sometime. The problem is CG’s can split through county lines so you’d have to have precinct-by-precinct data to calculate who would win each CG.

[Impy]

Ping

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Well, then, perhaps instead of restoring the power to choose electors to state legislators, possibly violating the 24th Amendment, we should go to the system some of the founders actually intended: voter choosing electors by electoral district.

The number of electoral districts in each state would equal the number of congressional districts + 2. Per the 24th amendment, we would have to list the President/VP on the ballot. However, we would only need one constitutional amendment to go back to using the names of actual electors instead, as the founders intended, leaving the President and VP candidates entirely out of it and having elector candidates compete for the people’s vote in each district.

PING!

[AuH2ORepublican]

I read the 24th Anendment as saying that *if* there is an election for president, senator, etc. that the voter can’t be made to pay a poll tax. It doesn’t prevent a state from authorizing its governor to appoint U.S. senators when there’s a vacancy, and it wouldn’t prevent a state from changing its rules so that state legislators elect the presidential electors.

I once read a law-journal article arguing that the 14th Amendment prohibits states from reestablishing the election of presidential electors by state legislators, and claiming that what had been a “common practice prior to the 14th Amendment. I wrote to the author (who was an acquaintance of a friend of mine) to point out that between 1832 and 1860, SC was the only state in which the state legislature elected the state’s presidential electors, and that two different states had state legislatures elect their presidential electors within the first three elections after ratification of the 14th Amendment (FL in 1868 and CO in 1876). The author admitted that he had been mistaken regarding antebellum presidential elections but insisted that the 1868 and 1876 precedents were isolated events at times in which it was not practical to hold a popular election (FL had just been readmitted to the Union after the Civil War, and CO had just been admitted as the 38th state). Of course, 10 other former Confederate states also were readmitted during Reconstruction and plenty of other states joined the Union soon prior to presidential elections and managed to hold a popular vote (heck, MI held a presidential election prior to it formally being admitted to the Union in 1837, and the electoral votes cast by their presidential electors were counted by Congress, so “not enough time” was not an excuse). I don’t think that there is anything in the Constitution that would prohibit a state l from deciding to empower its state legislature with the election of its presidential electors.

That being said, I think that it would be a terrible idea to give politicians in the state legislature the sole authority to elect a state’s presidential electors. Citizens should let politicians take their vote away only from their cold, dead hands. While the GOP currently has legislative majorities in states with over 270 electoral votes, that’s a recent development, and having state legislatures elect presidential electirs would have resulted in Ronald Reagan losing both the 1980 and 1984 elections to Carter and Mondale, respectively. So, while I think that states should explore apportioning electoral votes by congressional district (but would recommend that several states act in concert so that it doesn’t inadvertently harm the GOP presidential nominee), I would oppose any effort to have state legislators replace the voters in the election of presidential electors (save in exigent circumstances, such as if there was a popular vote in the state and the Republican won but courts tie up the certification, in which case I would recommend that the state legislature step in and elect the Republican candidate’s electors prior to the meeting date for the Electoral College).

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

The solution of switching to 1 vote per Congressional district and 2 per statewide winner representing the Senate sounds good in this day and age EXCEPT FOR the nightmare of gerrymandering the rats would inflict.

Rats and repubs alike already gerrymander. I see little difference in what would happen under 1 E.C. vote per Congressional district.

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

Admittedly, though, having two electors chosen statewide, and the rest by Congressional district, would be a check of sorts on gerrymandering.

[Ray76]

It would make it even more consequential.

[Oatka]

[Results if Electoral College votes awarded by Congressional District] it would be an interesting math project for somebody sometime.

An Internet search turned up a partial list of votes by Congressional Districts at the Daily KOS, that is supposed to be updated. This is just straight data without their usual spin or vitriol.

I found this map on HuffPost in an article complaining about how the Republicans want to "rig" the next election by going to the Congressional District plan. They showed a map for the 2012 election under that method which showed Romney winning. Note how the blue areas are restricted to the Metro areas, which is my main bone of contention. (I suspect this election would show an even bigger ECV for Trump using that method.)

Most interesting, they show a map of CDs Romney would have won in those states that went for obama . . .

. . . so at first blush, it looks like the CD method would aid the Republican/rural vote. My gripe is that currently, rural voters in many states might as well stay home as the Metro vote steamrollers all over them. The cd approach would be a fairer - and closer - expression of the voters without using the suicidal Popular Vote method.

[Oatka]

An addendum to the above post:

Fun With Party ID

A fascinating chart showing the WIDE swings in ECVs using the CD method - usually favoring the Republican/rural vote:

This is quite an interesting thread. One of the better discussions, IMO.

[OrangeHoof]

Nice find. To be fair, some blue CDs would come out of red states too. I just remember the fights in the Texas legislature with the Justice Department striking down CD lines the last time Texas won additional CDs (and more EVs by consequence) because they claimed some of the additional CDs needed to be waited toward Democrats and not all just by Republicans so, therefore, they become red or blue by judicial fiat as much as by population distribution.

[OrangeHoof]

What you have to remember about the chart in post 51 is that in ‘88, ‘84, ‘80 and ‘72, the GOP presidential candidate won in a complete EV blowout so even though they show Dems would have gained, it would be the equivalent of losing a football game 44-10 instead of 55-0.

[TBP]

How would returning it to the legislators violate the 24th Amendment?

All the Constitution says is that the electors shall be chosen in a manner prescribed by the legislature.

[TBP]

Hillary supposedly leads the popular vote by about 2 million. She carried California by about 3 million. so if we had a popular vote system, California by itself would hve chosen the president for teh other 49 states.

[TBP]

That’s a very broad interpretation of the 24th Amendment.

Certainly not originalist.

[TBP]

The states can construct the ballot however they choose, according to their state laws.

[Impy]

I read once that the rat house rushed to admit Colorado to the union in 1876 expecting the state to vote democrat and the joke was on them when the GOP legislature appointed the electors.

It never made sense to me because why would they assume a territory with a GOP leg would be a democrat state? And indeed Colorado voted GOP for President in 1880, ‘84, and ‘88.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Re: Colorado.

I can tell you why. In 1874, the Democrats elected their U.S. Delegate (Thomas MacDonald Patterson) and the presumption was that in 1876 elections, they’d have a good chance of winning a majority there. When the special election was held for the At-Large House seat, Republican James Burns Belford took it, BUT for the full term in 1876, Belford’s 52-48% win was contested by Patterson. Belford was initially seated, but Patterson was proven to be the victor and was seated. The sitting Grant-appointed Territorial GOP Governor, John Routt, won by the same narrow margin in that election (which might’ve been fraudulent as Rep. Belford’s was claimed to be).

Any hopes for the Dems to claim the state were dashed in the 1878 midterms when Belford took the House seat back from Patterson with a 50-42% margin.

Colorado would remain a GOP state until the Silverite faction split and it became a Populist/Dem state in the 1890s/1900s supporting Bryan (indeed, McKinley got a disastrous showing of only 13.9% (!) of the vote in 1896 where he was almost uniformally repudiated by the Mountain West states, with only SC and MS turning in higher %’s for Bryan, and that due to GOP/Black disenfranchisement). From 1888 until 1920, the GOP would only win it once at the Presidential level, in 1904.

A quarter century later, in 1901, Democrat Thomas Patterson was finally rewarded with a U.S. Senate seat.

[Impy]

Ah, interesting.

Do you know the numbers from the 1874 delegate race? Our campaigns doesn’t have them (or the GOP opponent). They have 1870 for some reason but don’t have the results of the CO delegate election for any other year.

I’d assume it was by margin large enough to imbue this confidence that they’d carry the state in ‘76.