Let's abolish the Electoral College

[billbuckhead]

Let's abolish the Electoral College

Created to protect the slave states, it is championed now by conservatives who fear the power of America's true majority. It's time to ditch the antiquated way we choose presidents.

By Garrett Epps
-------------------snip---------------------
After all is said and done, there's one overriding reason why many (not all) of the defenders of the existing system are so tenacious: By giving too much representation to small states, it skews the result toward conservative victory. Much of the talk about fear of democracy is really fear of the popular majorities that regularly show up on opinion polls for progressive measures like national healthcare and public financing of campaigns. John Samples of the Cato Institute wrote in 2000 (while Florida hung in the balance) that without electors, "We would probably see elections dominated by the most populous regions of the country or by several large metropolitan areas. In the 2000 election, for example, Vice President Gore could have put together a plurality or majority in the Northeast, parts of the Midwest, and California."
In short, the wrong person would be apt to win, and the wrong voters -- urban, nonwhite, progressive -- would outvote the right ones. In 2004, Gary L. Gregg wrote in National Review Online that "it's the electoral college that keeps the values of traditional America relevant in the 21st century and the electoral college that helps rural America balance the immense cultural, economic, and social power of urban centers." In other words, it prevents majorities from changing America. Most baldly, conservative pundit Steve Farrell wrote a few years ago that electoral voting "insures a candidate must balance his approach with rural, property, and state rights issues. It is one of many checks against direct democracy found in our Constitution, and is therefore a check against socialism."

A voting system should be designed to determine the majority will, not to disguise it. No matter how many bullets we dodge, this system is a loaded gun pointed directly at the heart of our democracy. That we pointed it there and keep it there ourselves doesn't make it any less dangerous. The solution is not to fiddle with the bullets; we need to put the gun down, and make another vital step toward real democratic government, 21st century-style.
------------------snip------------------------
<http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2007/10/12/electoral_college/index1.html>

The electoral college has destroyed democracy in America like a slow acting poison.

[Devlzown]

1. All for it

n/t

[billbuckhead]

2. Oh, I forgot America isn't a democracy, that's what we impose on others

:wtf:

[Kazak]

3. I'm in!

Always thought so. Reinforced in 2000.

[muntrv]

4. We don't have democracy in the US, we just "bring it" to other countries.

[Tesha]

37. Sort of like the pizza man, ehh?

"Get the door -- it's Democracy!"

Tesha

[RainDog]

5. I think it's past time

as the article notes, it would result in more representation (via votes) for minorities... so what's the difference b/t the reason it was invented and the reason it's used now?

(edited b/c my subject header made no sense... d'uh)

[TahitiNut]

6. Doubling the size of the House of Representatives would help a lot.

Right now, there're two 'features' of the Electoral system that can create a wide discrepancy between the popular will and the reflection of that will in the Electoral College:
(1) the "winner take all" approach to allocation of electoral votes, and
(2) the widely diverse ratios of population to electoral votes in the various states.

Requiring proportional allocation of electoral votes to popular votes within a state would be a good step, even if the two electors corresponding to the Senate were still to be allocated on a "winner takes both" majority.

An elector in California represents approximately 25 times the number of voters as an elector from Wyoming, both because ot the widely differing populations and because, due to the limitations on the number of members of the House of Representatives, there's far too little weight on the number allocated according to House representation.


FWIW, I'd be opposed to tying an elector's vote to the Congressional District (or Senate winner-take-all), if only because it'd make the whole country look like a zoo for gerrymanders. I'd only support state-wide proportional allocation.

[DS1]

7. The Electoral College works. GOP Voter fraud and disenfranchisement is what failed the system

[UGADUer]

8. YES~!

[MonkeyFunk]

9. I'd love to

but realistically, it's never going away. You'll never get enough states to vote to change the constitution to do this. Small states benefit from this - they'll never voluntarily give up the extra power it gives them.

[AZ Criminal JD]

10. Impossible mission

Andrew Jackson first called for the abolishment of the electoral college in 1824. The proposals are made every election cycle and go nowhere. It would take 2/3s of Congress and 3/4 of the states to junk it. That will never happen.

[derby378]

11. I hate to say this...

...but if you abolish the Electoral College, then your next President will be chosen by only three states: Texas, California, and New York. Think about it.

[MonkeyFunk]

12. If that's where the people live

what's wrong with that?

[derby378]

17. EVERY state deserves to be represented

Even Alaska, Hawaii, and Rhode Island. It's a little safeguard against letting a handful of overcrowded states lord it over everyone else.

I will say, however, that the current Electoral College process could use a massive overhaul...

[MonkeyFunk]

18. No

states don't need to be represented in the presidential election. They're represented in the Senate.

PEOPLE should elect the President, not states.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

38. WRONG! States are no longer represented in the Senate

as the people now vote for the members, the State no longer has a say. Direct election of Senators destroyed the balance of the Houses intended by our founders and has given us the runaway federal gov't we have today.

sP

[billbuckhead]

19. What about each PERSON being equally represented?

Why does someone in Wyoming deserve more voting power than Californians?

[Tesha]

35. Because they're white people who vote for REPUBLICANS, silly! (NT)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. I hate to say this, but your reasoning is based on false assumptions

Sorry to be so harsh, but you're not thinking clearly.

In the EC, yes, it's winner take all. A few large states can choose the president.

However, every single state in the Union has both Republicans and Democrats. Every one.

Under the current system, Democrats in Utah and Republicans in Massachusetts might as well stay home on presidential election day, because they know that their state will go for the other party.

Very few states are competitive under the EC system. It is precisely the largest states that choose the president now, because they're the only ones that are really up for grabs. Most of the small states are solidly in one camp or the other. Yet even they have members of the other party.

Therefore, Texas, California, and New York couldn't choose the president by themselves unless every single voter in all three states voted for the same candidate, which will never happen.

Furthermore, under the current system, North Dakota, with a population of 600,000, gets 3 electoral votes, or one per 200,000 people. Minnesota, with 4 million people (almost 7 times as many as ND), gets 10 votes, or one for every 400,000 people. A North Dakota vote therefore is given twice as much weight as a vote from Minnesota.

The current system also makes cheating easier. All you have to do is concentrate your cheating in the largest states.

The current system also causes candidates to neglect the small states. They each make several passes through California, New York, Texas, Illnois, and other large states. How many go to Alaska or Rhode Island?

Some apologists for the EC claim that it forces the candidates to consider the small states, but in fact, the small states have more in common with their neighbors than with other small states. Rhode Island and Wyoming are both small states. What do they have in common? I'd say that Rhode Island has more in common with Massachusetts than it does with Wyoming and that Wyoming has more in common with Colorado than it does with Rhode Island.

Under an electoral college system, you could hear an announcement,"Joe Blow has won New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, Tennessee, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Delaware, Connecticut, and Texas, so he's the winner. Too bad about you West Coast voters."

Or, if you leave off Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Arkansas, Maryland, Minnesota, and Iowa, and add California, just 15 states could elect the president--under the current system.

Furthermore, this could happen even if the vote was close in all or most of these states, even if most of these states were purple rather than blue or red.

Under a one-person one-vote system:

1. Everyone's vote counts, even if their party isn't in the majority in their state. People in the minority party are more motivated to vote, since they know their dissenting votes will be added to the total for their candidate.

2. Candidates have to pay attention to small states, because they don't know which group of voters could put them over the top, especially in a close race.

3. In a close race, you won't know who has won until Alaska and Hawaii report their results. The West Coast is not disenfranchised.

4. Cheating is more difficult, since you have to cheat throughout the country instead of in just a few key states.

[cynatnite]

31. I thought they didn't announce who won what state until...

all the polls closed.

I'm of the thinking that more needs done with EC as it stands, but I do have concerns about abolishing the EC all together. Candidates would primarily be interested in campaigning the larger cities with the largest populations. Voters might be more inclined to stay home (which many do anyway because they may believe their vote doesn't count). Democrats do win far more easily in larger cities like NYC, LA, Chicago and so on. Republicans rely heavily on voter turnout in the south and in small town Ameria. Lot's of red there.

I do think that candidates from both sides would fight harder for a big city like Houston than they would for a small farm town like Cherokee, OK which only has about a 1000 people. Why should anyone care about a 1000 people when everyone will care more about several hundred thousand or a few million?

Sorry, I don't agree with abolishing the electoral college. I think it needs to be overhauled in some way that gives more states an equal shot as others like Iowa or Ohio.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

58. They start announcing state results as soon as the polls have closed

A West Coast person who is keeping track (I was a West Coast person in 2000) starts getting East Coast results at 5PM their time.

And your reasoning about large cities versus small towns is off.

Candidates don't pay attention to Podunk, Ohio NOW.

[Dr. Strange]

62. A couple of issues...

1. Everyone's vote counts, even if their party isn't in the majority in their state. People in the minority party are more motivated to vote, since they know their dissenting votes will be added to the total for their candidate.

By that logic, if you didn't vote for the winner, then your vote "didn't count," even in a popular vote. This is really an objection to a winner-take-all election, not the electoral college or popular vote.

4. Cheating is more difficult, since you have to cheat throughout the country instead of in just a few key states.

Actually, this is perhaps the biggest argument for KEEPING the electoral college. Think about a state like Texas. In the last election, was there any fraud on their part? Probably not, since they were clearly leaning for Bush. In some sense, this is good, because there are an awful lot of republicans in Texas, so it would be easy for them to cheat (not enough democrats to keep an eye on them). Go to a popular vote, and the republicans in Texas now have a HUGE incentive to cheat in the presidential election. And I suspect that they would do just that. (And if the election were close nationwide, then that just might end up being the deciding factor.)

[Tesha]

36. Mathematically, that claim is nonsense.

Once you eliminate states from the equation, then
every citizen's vote counts exactly the same and one
vote in Rhode Island has the same potential to tip
the election as one vote in Texas.

Tesha

[Sparkly]

13. Definitely. nt

[beyurslf]

14. Can you imagine the recount battles if we had a nationwide vote?

Repubs suing in every Repub stronghold in the burbs while Dems sued in NYC, LA, and SanFran to get as many of their votes as possible counted. Oh my. We'd need 6 months to count them all and sort it out.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. This is my argument against it...

although I have no love for the EC, the alternative could be far worse.

Everyone's used to it and it sort of works-- why take the risk of "fixing" it?

[billbuckhead]

20. It sort of works to unfairly elect conservatives

:shrug:

[TreasonousBastard]

21. I'm not sure I buy that...

what evidence is there that any other way would be fairer? Or not elect conservatives?

Last time around, Shrub got 51% of the popular vote-- where do you start if you wanted a recount? How would Kerry have found around over 1 1/2 missing million votes?

[MonkeyFunk]

24. smaller states

which tend to vote more conservative than the large states, are given extra power through the Electoral College.

The Senate has the same imbalance... Larry Craig represents far fewer people than Barbara Boxer, yet has the same power she has.

[TreasonousBastard]

25. the Senate is deliberately unbalanced...

and was part of the Great Compromise to give small states a voice. The EC, however, is more or less relative to the population, with small states having fewer electoral votes, as in the House.

There have been very few Presidential elections where the "loser" had the popular vote-- most of them the electoral vote seemed way out of balance because you could win by, say, 2% of the popular vote but have 60% of the states.

We could argue all day and night about Gore's and Kerry's decisions over recounts, and how fraudulent those elections were, but I can't see how direct elections in just those years would have made things any easier or clearer.

Anyway, every campaign takes into account the calculus of electoral votes and it's pretty well down to a science-- "should I ignore Wyoming and concentrate on getting all those votes Pennsylvania has up for grabs?"

It's the Wyomings that get ignored that usually want to eliminate the EC.

[MonkeyFunk]

26. Of course it's deliberate

I never argued otherwise.

My point though, is that conservatives get a leg-up because of it.

And Wyoming definitely does NOT want to do away with the E.C. They benefit extraordinarily from it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Same as we do now

Each state recounts its votes.

[TreasonousBastard]

70. There's a small problem with that...

Right now if New York sends all of its electors for one candidate thanks to a 1,000 vote margin, a recount makes a lot of sense. But, if two dozen states are close, two dozen recounts become a bit onerous.

It means fighting with a lot of states and the campaigns end up spending a bundle for each recount no matter who pays for the actual counting.

[whistle]

15. Great, do it!

[petgoat]

23. Wait! Don't Do It!

As of now, the only way to punish fraudulent elections
is for Congress to refuse to accept those electors' votes.

For instance, Ohio, where Republican Dirty tricks were
rampant in 2004.

New Mexico, with very hinky voting machine results in 2004.

Pennsylvania, with an amazing shift of something like 15%
from exit polls to vote counts (Kerry still won, so nobody
noticed.)

[Bake]

22. Don't mess with the Constitution.

Do you REALLY want to open up that can of worms? REALLY? Think about it.

Bake

[MonkeyFunk]

30. Sure

it's not a can of worms. It's a proposed constitutional amendment.

It'll never pass, but I don't find your argument convincing. There's a number of things we need to fix about the constitution - so yeah, let's open up that can.

[Cronopio]

59. Do you REALLY want to believe that vague threats are an actual argument?

Really. Think about it.

[Bake]

63. Then why not just scrap it and start over?

We could have a whole new Constitutional Convention. I shudder to think what kind of crap we'd come up with. And what kind of rights we'd lose. Remember that you're not the only one who'd like to change some things.

Bake

[robinlynne]

27. I think it's a great idea, but right now we have more important things to do,

don't we? We have a war to stop, election fraud, corruption and deceit all over the place. Can we fix those first?

[libodem]

32. Go for it!

Idaho has four votes. If the majority votes for three they throw in the last one. God, damn it is NOT fair. Makes me feel like, why even vote, in this stinkin' conservative state. Even if we have one quarter Democratic party votes we should get 'em. Dammit! Our votes should count. Maybe it's even why I'm so tired of Republickins' lying, cheating, and robbing me at every juncture. My sense of fairness has been demolished by this system. I hate the Electoral College for wrecking my vision of democracy and fairness in general. I know life's not fair. But I'm NOT getting over it. I'll stay mad, thank you,very much!

[maine_raptor]

33. Some "Fun Facts" about the EC:

First, while Electors are "bound" by the results of their state's vote, they don't have to follow it; they can choose to cast their ballot for "the other one".

Second, two states (Maine and Nebraska) split the EC according to Congressional Districts.

Third, while, under the terms of 12th Amendment and as modified by the 20th, the EC must meet and vote by Jan 20th, the actual date (the first Monday following the second Wednesday in December) is set by 3 USC 7.

About the OP:

The original reason as to WHY we have such a beast is, as many before me have pointed out, the disparity between rural and urban voter concentrations in our society. That was the rational the Founders used back then, and from what I see today, that disparity still exists.

I vote to keep it.

[Snarkturian Clone]

39. agree.

"The original reason as to WHY we have such a beast is, as many before me have pointed out, the disparity between rural and urban voter concentrations in our society. That was the rational the Founders used back then, and from what I see today, that disparity still exists."

Regionalism is still a big factor in American Politics. Shit, half the arguments on DU are based on a difference of regional opinions.

In a country as large as ours, we have to check any kind of regionalism that exists. I'm not the biggest fan of the EC, but I think it is a necessary evil.

Part of me thinks that if a democrat won an election because of an advantage in the EC, the OP would be about keeping the EC, not abolishing it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

47. Can you clarify "the disparity between rural and urban voter concentrations in our society" ?

Why is that a 'reason'? If you mean concentration in terms of people per square mile, why is that any reason to do with elections? Are you saying that rural people have to travel further to voting booths, so they ought to get more power in them as compensation?

[Cronopio]

60. About electors not having to follow the results of the state's votes they are "bound" to ...

1. That kind of means that they're not really bound to the results of the state's vote, doesn't it? Unless the meaning of "bound" has recently been changed to "not bound".
2. That's an excellent argument against the Electoral College, which pretends to be a mechanism whereby the voters of all states are represented in a Presidential election, but where, in reality, the representatives don't really *have* to represent the voters. Even the pretense of the Electoral College is a farce.

"The original reason as to WHY we have such a beast is, as many before me have pointed out, the disparity between rural and urban voter concentrations in our society."

And that's just the same old, long-since-discounted "one acre, one vote" argument that all arguments for the Electoral College boil down to. The problem is with that argument is that that's not the principle our nation was founded on. As I recall from my high-school civics course, these are the two main principles:

1. One person, one vote.
2. Taxation with representation.

The Electoral College transgresses both principles. If California, Illinois, and New York have most of the people paying most of the taxes to support the government, they should have a greater say in who gets to be in the Oval Office. O.E.F.D., unless you disagree with the concept of democracy. The other branches of government were created to address the "tyranny of the majority" issues.

Another thing from that civics course - the reason the Electoral College was established was that, for the obvious practical reasons, it was quicker and more reliable for the votes of each state to be tallied in each state, and then an elector sent to Washington D.C. with those results. A little over a century ago, there was a concerted effort to repeal the EC, but by then, many interests had discovered how to game the system, and so the "one acre, one vote" argument was created to defend the scam.

"I vote to keep it."

You can't vote to keep it. Your elector might, or might not.

P.S.: I'm amazed we're still having this discussion, and still having to live with the EC, after Election 2000. If there was ever a slam-dunk argument against the EC, it was that. The corruption that many Americans will put up with ...

[Tesha]

34. It will never happen in our current political environment.

It assures that power is unlikely to escape the
two major parties so as long as they each "win
some of 'em", they'll be for it.

Maybe after the revolution, ehh? Or after people
start having the good sense to realize we can easily
elect third party candidates as far as Congress?

Tesha

[John Kerry VonErich]

40. Great Idea

:sarcasm:

Let's just give this country to California and New York.

[billbuckhead]

41. What about giving government to "we the people" and not to states?

[ProdigalJunkMail]

42. then you need to reform the USA

we are nothing if not a confederation of states...abolish them, then you have what you want. The organization around a state structure is meaningless if the states don't have a say in their government.

sP

[John Kerry VonErich]

43. The real problem is not the EC itself

We need EC reform. What we are mad at is people like Tom Delay using the EC for party gain by illegal redistricting and cheating the system. As well as California's attempt in splitting the EC rep votes to help the republicans get an advantage. The EC is the fairest way so that the smaller states can have a say, just that people take advantage of it and getting rid of it would be disasterous.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. How could redistricting affect the Electoral College?

The only 'districts' in the EC are the states themselves. Delay never had the power to redraw state boundaries.

I think you're confusing the problems in congressional election and presidential ones.

[Snarkturian Clone]

44. this is unrelated but..

great user name!

[John Kerry VonErich]

46. Oh thank you

ok now back to topic :)

[Bassic]

45. I agree, it is obsolete. nt

[MLFerrell]

48. Abolishing the electoral college is useless without also restructuring the Senate.

The Senate shares the same attribute due to its "two Senators per State" construction.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

50. The EC and the Senate need to be democratized.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

51. what? please explain...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

52. Actually, I think the only way to democratize the EC is to abolish it.

As for the senate, if kept, the number of people in a state should decide the number of senators.

As the OP said, both are holdovers from a now non-existent, sparsely populated, agrarian and slave holding country of disparate states.

The fact now is that votes in Wyoming, Alaska, and North Dakota carry more weight than votes from California, New York, and Illinois.

It's undemocratic.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

53. but the states exist...if you want to remove states then that is one thing

but as long as states exist in any real meaningful form, then they need to have some power. The states have already lost their power in the Senate due to the direct election of senators...if the the electoral college is disbanded, then you may as well remove the states altogether...

sP

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

54. Do you consider the direct election of senators a bad thing?

As it is now, a minority of people in the less populated states wield a great deal of power over the people in the rest of the country.

It is simply undemocratic.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

55. if we are to be a conferdation of states...then yes, direct election

was a bad thing...it took away the voice of the interest of the STATES (which was why there were two houses to begin with) and now gives all power to the federal gov't...the state has no effective voice at the federal level...

sP

[mainegreen]

65. I'm all for that only if New England get's to be its own country.

I want no part of greater Californitexayorkida.

[lovuian]

56. Get rid of it We are not a democracy we are a Republic

Its BS

[struggle4progress]

57. The hell with minor reformism: let's go to a parliamentary system where

the executive collapses on a vote of no confidence

[Evoman]

61. Divide the country into five regions and elect five presidents.

Thats my idea! :shrug:

[mainegreen]

66. On the surface, that idea doesn't sound so bad.

[RainDog]

64. at the least

the electoral college should be altered so that all votes of a state do not go to one candiate/party or another.

the ec votes could be proportionate according to the number of votes each candidate received in each state. As it is, yes, if you live in a solidly red or blue state... why bother to vote?

Why should people have to feel that they have no choice in their vote for a president? We already have the legislative branches to represent states' rights. We need a democractically-elected president. Direct democracy.

[John Kerry VonErich]

67. California tried to get that passed.

And not a lot of people here were happy about it.

[RainDog]

68. well, yeah

and a lot of people were unhappy when women got the right to vote and when blacks were no longer forcibly segregated. Stupid fucking idiot Tucker CCCCCarlson said he's never considered whether or not a candidate had a penis or not when he's heard people say others should vote for Hillary because she's a woman. (I don't agree, btw..)

Tucker is such a pos that he failed to note that he's never HAD TO think about whether or not a candidate had a penis. (He still doesn't, but the "vaginal vote" (yes, called that) is now a wedge issue (sorry, couldn't help myself) for the Republicans who've never gotten over Freud.

Anyway, direct vote provides some protection against the gerrymandered seats in the legs. (from both sides of the aisle)

oh, and I just want to say that BUSH HAS A TINY PENIS!!! BUSH HAS A TINY PENIS!!! OHMYGOD. HOW CAN HE BE IN OFFICE WITH HIS TINY PENIS?????

[John Kerry VonErich]

69. I'm just the messenger

What we really need is tighter rules of redistricting. Districts are the key in the EC, but people like to change it for party advantage. Look at Tom Delay. He redistirct his state so the republicans can gain a better advantage. What was predominately a democratic district was split into a more republican districts. Which of course is unfair.

[nemo137]

71. Wouldn't removing the Cap on the number of MC's fix that?

You'd have more accurate representation in both the House and the EC if we went back to there being 1 representative for every X people, rather than 435 distributed among the 300,000,000 of us.