In the wake of the recent Democratic defeat there are sure to be calls for the abolition of the electoral college and its replacement with the election of the president by a direct vote with a simple majority.
The way the electoral college works, the president is elected by a majority vote of the electors. Each state has one elector per member in the House of Representatives plus one elector per member of the Senate. States have members of the House based on their population (with the stipulation that each state has at least one), with a total of 435 House members. But the Senate does not have proportional representation. Each state has two senators, regardless of its population. With fifty states, that means a hundred senators. The District of Columbia also gets three electors, so 435 + 100 +3 = 538, the current number of electors.
Of those, you need a simple majority, or 270 for a clear win. (If there is a tie, then there is a special procedure in which the House picks the president and the Senate picks the vice president, but let’s not go there.)
Now, a word about the way the House and the Senate: As you likely know, the reason that the House has proportional representation and the Senate does not is that it’s an attempt to balance the interests of the many with the interests of the few. The fact that populous states get more representatives in the House means that the interests of populous states get looked after. The fact that all states have equal representation in the Senate means that the interests of low-population states are looked after, so that the representatives of a simple majority of the population can’t simply step on the interests of the low-population states.
A similar role is played in the electoral college by having electors corresponding to a state’s Senate representation. It keeps the electoral college from having purely proportional representation and thus helps balance the interests of high and low population states.
That’s a good thing.
Here’s a map I came up with illustraing why:
The blue colored states are what you might call "the Big 9"–i.e., the states with the most population. Together, the Big 9 have more than 50% of the U.S. population in them. The other 41 states–"the Little 41," as we might say–have just under 50%.
Since the Big 9 have nowehere near 50% of the U.S. landmass, the only way they can have more than 50% of the population is for them to have Big Cities in them. They are Urbanized (even Texas and California, though to a lesser degree than the northeastern blue states in this illustration).
(FWIW, the states are not all shown to scale due; Alaska in particular should be way bigger.)
Here is why we need the electoral college: It’s a way of protecting the small (less populous) states from domination by the giant (high population) ones. All a candidate would need to do to win the presidency with a simple majority of the population vote would be to get the votes of the Big 9 (e.g., by making them elaborate promises to be paid for by the Little 41) and then he could completely ignore the interests of the Little 41.
In practice, of course, no candidate would get all and only the votes of the folks in the Big 9. His opponent would get some of those votes as well, but then he himself would get some votes in the Little 41, so the principle still remains: By targeting just these nine states, which in the main are urbanized or at least contain large urban centers, a candidate could win the presidency and completely ignore the interests of the Little 41.
The electora college prevents that from happening by giving the Little 41 extra clout in the presidential election, meaning that a broader mix have their interests taken into account than otherwise would happen. It’s not a perfect system, but there’s a logic to it that you might want to be aware of the next time you hear someone calling for the abolition of the electoral college.
While we’re defending the electoral college, can we also see a consideration of the 17th Amendment (i.e., U.S. Senators elected by direct vote, rather than the original plan of election by state legislatures)? The original plan protected the interests of the states in the federal government. (It also protected the interests of property owners against the encroachment of socialism, but that’s another story.)
There were problems with the plan (see link below), but the solution should have been to tweak the election rules within the state legislatures, not to scrap the election of U.S. Senators by the state legislatures for direct vote.
http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Direct_Election_Senators.htm
No system is perfect, and there is a logic to it, but it should still be abolished. There is no way that tiny, New England states and, even less so, the District of Columbia, should be as over represented in the Electoral College as they are (and as New England is in the Senate, to boot.) It just ain’t fair. At a minimum, all states should go with proportional representation (at which point the superfluousness of the College is rank.)
I thank God for the wisdom of our Founders and the foresight to put this system into place. I am so glad that the urbanites do not get to trample on the rights of the ruralites. I cannot imagine living in a world where a pure popular vote dictated policy.
People who live in densely populated areas simply think vastly differently than the rest of the world and they need to be held in check from forcing their views down the rest of the folks’ throats.
Thanks for spelling this out so clearly for everyone Jimmy.
I would like to add that one of the reasons why a purely popular vote wouldn’t work (oh there are so many reasons), is that for a “pure” democracy all of the voters must have “total” information. They must all have equal access to ALL of the facts in order to be able to make an informed decision. Since this is not possible we must have a system that is not a purely popular vote system.
No system is perfect, and there is a logic to it, but it should still be abolished.
Yes, a monarchy would be much better. Preferably a Catholic one, of course.
People who live in densely populated areas simply think vastly differently than the rest of the world and they need to be held in check from forcing their views down the rest of the folks’ throats.
You know, I might be compelled to agree but as an city-dweller myself it’s hard for me to see past the thinly-veiled contempt in your post.
As far as thinking “vastly differently than the rest of the world,” why, so do Catholics. There is no shame in being a sign of contradiction. If city-dwellers are wrong, they’re wrong; but having different ideas than the rest of the world is a virtue, not a vice.
I would like to add that one of the reasons why a purely popular vote wouldn’t work (oh there are so many reasons), is that for a “pure” democracy all of the voters must have “total” information. They must all have equal access to ALL of the facts in order to be able to make an informed decision. Since this is not possible we must have a system that is not a purely popular vote system.
There are “pure” democracies at the State and municipal level and most voters are no more informed about those races than the federal ones.
Democracy really only works in very tiny communities, such as monasteries, where one’s qualities, strengths, faults, flaws, and pecadilloes are well-known to everyone else.
Although they have a history of abuse, and it would be very impractical and challenged in the courts within seconds of ratification, I would like to see the implementation of the requirement of passing a test before you could vote each election. The test would basically just ask about a candidate’s platform or what a certain proposition means.
You have a right to vote.
You have a responsibility to educate yourself before you vote.
If you can show that you know what you are voting for, feel free to still just pull the top row of levers because it is easier.
Why not limit voting to those who own real property? People who own nothing have no reason to respect someone else’s goods.
Of those, you need a simple majority, or 270 for a clear win. (If there is a tie, then there is a special procedure in which the House picks the president and the Senate picks the vice president, but let’s not go there.)
While it’s not really applicable any more since the rise of the two-party system, a candidate might have a plurality in the Electoral College and still the election would be “thrown” to the House of Representatives. For example, suppose that candidate X (GOP) had 269 EC votes, candidate Y (Dem) 266, and candidate Z (Ind) 3 (he won Vermont). Even though X has the most EC votes, the election is still decided by the House; and if the House has a Democratic majority, Y could come out the winner, even though he “lost” the Electoral College (and even perhaps the popular vote). This has happened in the past — 1824, when John Quincy Adams won over Andrew Jackson even though the latter had more votes in the EC.
Re: ‘a candidate might have a plurality in the Electoral College and still the election would be “thrown” to the House….’
While not perfect, this seems like a reasonable safeguard to me. Since the House is made up of proportional representation, this process shifts the decision in the direction of a pure popular vote, while promoting stability of government (since the House members serve longer; the House makeup is less susceptible to wild power shifts. Oh, except for redistricting… Oy!)
Anyway, since House members have smaller constituencies(sp?) than senators (or presidents,) their selection comes closest to the ideal described above by dcs (“Democracy really only works in very tiny communities….”) And they’re more likely to be well-informed voters than much of the general population (in practice; in theory, we should all be well-informed voters!)
As the left & right move farther into their respecive corners, I’d like to see a third party gain a little more power & shake things up a bit.
By “very tiny” I was thinking 100 or less. Even the size of the College of Cardinals gives me pause. 😉
Has France surrendered yet?
Yes, I have a sense of what you meant by ‘tiny,’ but isn’t something closer to the ideal still better than something else that is farther from the ideal? My thought is that democracy can work better in an area 1/20th the size of a state (for example) than an area the size of the entire state. Or would you suggest that both are so far from the ideal that they are equally worthless as exercises in democracy?
Actually, if you’re going to analyze the effects of abolition of the Electoral College, you need to leave states out of it. The big 9 and the little 41 (+1 for DC) would play no part in a popular vote. It would all be based on vote totals as they trickle in from the various precincts.
This is precisely why *I* feel that the Electoral College should be retained – or at least that we perform some serious analysis before we enact any proposal to eliminate the Electoral College. We need to remember that the United States is a Federal government, in which power resides either in the Federal Government, in the States, or in the people. Direct election of the President and Vice President would shatter that balance, since the states would be bypassed. I’ll grant that the irrelevance of the States in Presidential affairs has been posited before – Andrew Jackson believed that his mandate came directly from the people – but I’d be reluctant to enshrine the irrelevance of the states into the Constitution itself.
I think that those who wish to dispose of the large State/small State Compromise (you -did- learn about that in school, right?) fail to remember, that the small States can simply go their own way. I suspect most of our military and resources are from the small States.
Repeal the 16th and 17th, enact a small tarrif for revenue and protection of the American family, and maybe divide up the large States into smaller ones, once they hit 10 electoral votes.
Although most of the nation did vote for a republican, democrats made great gains in controlling state legislatures and state senates. Perhaps electing Senators by popular vote ain’t such a bad idea after all.
Although most of the nation did vote for a republican, democrats made great gains in controlling state legislatures and state senates. Perhaps electing Senators by popular vote ain’t such a bad idea after all.
Isn’t that how we got Senator Clinton? 😉