If it aint broke, don't fix it

A look at the Electoral College Issue

If It Ain't Broke...Don't Fix It!
by Dell Hunt
originally published January 5, 2001; posted here June 25, 2001
... .
I recently heard a joke, "If it ain't broke... the government will fix it until it is." This might ring true in the "Constitutional Crisis" buzz that fills airwaves and newspapers.
We're bombarded about how the Electoral College should be scrapped because it didn't award the Presidency to the popular vote winner. But did it fail? Let's look at the three times it happened before.

The first was in 1824, the first year popular vote was tabulated. Andrew Jackson received 44,804 more votes than John Quincy Adams, who was elected. The Electoral votes split with no majority among 4 candidates. In a House run-off, Adams was elected by 13 of 24 State delegations. But all this lacks relevance since 6 of the 24 states, including most populous New York where Adams held a stronghold, still appointed electors without statewide presidential elections.

The next was in 1876 when Rutherford Hayes won 185-184. Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by 264,292. After much controversy the one vote victory stood. But to understand why, we go back to the debates that created the Electoral College.

One of the major issues during the Constitutional Convention was the balance of power between large and small states. To resolve this, the Framers created the House with representation based entirely on population and the Senate with each state having equal votes regardless of size. The Electoral College combines these two concepts with a state's votes equal to its number of Representatives and Senators. The result is a system primarily based on population with smaller states having their voice slightly increased.

Back to 1876, Hayes won 10-4 in states with 6 or less electors. The slight increase in small state's representation won Hayes the Electoral College. But since it was designed this way, doesn't this prove that it worked instead of failed? In baseball a tie goes to the runner. In Presidential races a tie, or at least close, typically goes to the winner of a vast majority of small states.

Now on to 1888. Grover Cleveland won the popular vote by 100,456, a margin less than 1%. Benjamin Harrison won a landslide Electoral victory of 233-168. Many claim that this proves that the Electoral College is flawed. But was it?

Cleveland had campaigned on the issue of reduced tariffs, one that heavily catered to the special interests of the Southern coastal states. This led to an overwhelming 72% victory in 6 Southern states by 425,532 votes. Hayes won 20 of the remaining 32 states by closer percentages and a combined margin of 325,076 votes.

Also by design, the Electoral College rewards widespread National support instead of high percentage regional support from a few states or special interest groups that can boost popular votes by catering to them. That's why Cleveland lost the Electoral count despite winning more popular votes. Now if the Electoral College accomplished what it was designed to do, doesn't that prove that it worked?

Now what happened in 2000? (Without going into the Florida recount soap opera.) Gore won the popular vote by 337,576, a margin of 3/10 of 1%. Bush won the Electoral College 271-267. What gave Bush the Electoral win? Basically a combination of what happened in 1876 and 1888. Bush won 13-6 in states with 6 or less electors. Close elections favor the winner of a vast majority of small states. Remember 1876?

Demographics show that Gore's campaign platform appealed primarily to the special interests of large urban populations--the Northeast, Great Lakes and Pacific Coast. Gore largely ignored most of the Rockies, Great Plains and South which was Bush's stronghold. Gore won 21 primarily urban states (including DC). Bush won widespread support in 30 states all across middle America. If Gore would have won just 1 more state he would be President & Florida wouldn't have even mattered.

Gore won the 2 most populous states, New York & California, by an overwhelming margin of 2,815,471. Narrowing that count down to just New York City and Los Angeles County, Gore won by 2,380,534. Which means that the rest of the United States, outside of those 2 metro areas, favored Bush by 2,042,958 votes. Remember 1888?

So whether you like it or not, the Electoral College did in 2000 exactly what it was designed to do. Without it the power of electing Presidents would rely primarily in a handful of the largest population centers including New York & California. Now wasn't that the original issue that brought it about in the first place?

Maybe the problem is that some people are just upset that it did in fact work? By the way, have you noticed that most opponents of the Electoral College are from... New York & California?

So if it ain't broke... Don't fix it!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dell Hunt is a columnist for the Morning Sun, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. This Editorial originally appeared in the January 5, 2001 Morning Sun.
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This article brings up several points, though I would argue that to be even more representative, the EC should be given on an individual congressional districts while the statewide winner takes the 2 senatorial votes. This method is used in Maine and Nebraska. The method that was voted upon in Colorado I believe was going to be split by the popular vote. If the whole nation did that, the election would be decided by states with odd numbered electoral votes and those where a candidate can get at least 60 % of the EC vote.

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A dissenting view. I don't buy the arguments. We the vote shifted his way, smaller states would have zero say in the election and it would become a contest for the larger urban areas. I would much rather be lumped with Iowa's 1.2 million votes, than be lost in the 120 million votes of the last election.

The Electoral College: An Unacceptable Way to Elect Our President
by EVERETT DE PANGHER
posted June 25, 2001
... .
If you think you have ever voted at your polling place for the president of the United States, do you know that you are mistaken? Of course, millions of Americans have cast ballots with the names of presidential candidates on them, but those are not votes cast directly for the candidates. Rather, when you vote for president you are actually voting to give electors, pledged to a certain candidate, seats in a body called the Electoral College. The Electoral College, not the general public, elects the president. On election day of last year, 50,996,039 people cast votes for Al Gore, 539,898 (just over one half of one percent of the total popular vote) more than voted for George W. Bush. However, more Bush supporters won seats in the Electoral College, and they elected him 271-266. Is this the best way to elect our president?
The answer is no. The current method we use to select our president is unacceptable. The results of last year's presidential election was among the reasons why I believe the current system does not work. We should abolish the Electoral College because it allows for the will of the people to be misrepresented when electoral vote and popular vote results are not the same; it discriminates against certain citizens by making the votes of some states more influential than the votes of other states, and it can create a number of bizarre scenarios which could alter the results of an election.

First, we should start by getting a clear picture of what the Electoral College is because, as Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. once wrote, "[The Electoral College] is impossible to explain to foreigners. Even most Americans don't understand it." Indeed, the system is not nearly as simple as the direct vote method used in most other elections. As prescribed in the Constitution, every state gets to choose electors equal to the number of its senators and representatives; Washington, D.C. gets three. The Constitution gives the legislature in each state the authority to select the way its state's electors are chosen. The Electoral College is not a standing body. Rather, it operates only long enough for its members to vote in each election for president. Each state delegation of electors usually convenes in its state capital, and the electors cast ballots for the president and the vice president. After they finish voting, the president of the U.S. Senate receives the results. Then, in the presence of Congress, he/she has the votes counted and announces the totals. If no presidential candidate gets more than half of the electoral votes, then a vote is held in the U.S. House of Representatives to determine the winner. Similarly, the U.S. Senate decides the winner of the vice presidency. Overall, the system of choosing the president and vice president is probably the most complex election method in our country today.

Exercising its constitutional right under this system, each state legislature, which decides how its state's electors will be picked, has chosen to involve the average citizen in the selection process of electors. Today, forty-eight states and Washington, D.C. choose their electors by having the people at large cast votes, called popular votes, for a presidential candidate. The candidate with the most popular votes wins that state's electors. In Maine and Nebraska, the two states which operate under what is called the "district" system, the presidential candidate who gets the most popular votes in a congressional district gets an elector, and the winner of the most votes statewide gets two electors. Thus, the popular vote is incorporated into our contemporary means of choosing electors.

After looking carefully at the Electoral College and these rules under which it operates, my first argument for abolishing it is that the Electoral College can misrepresent the will of the people. Besides last year, candidates won in the Electoral College while getting fewer popular votes than their opponents in 1876 and 1888. A similar discrepancy occurred in 1824, when President John Quincy Adams was elected while losing the popular vote; however, in that case the popular vote was not necessarily a good reflection of national sentiment because not all states were using a popular vote method for selecting electors. In the past the Electoral College has simply failed to represent the people's will by not electing the person whom a plurality of voters has wanted to be the president.

Not only has the Electoral College actually elected the popular vote loser, but it has come close to doing so many additional times. Sen. Richard Durbin points outs that in "...the elections of 1844, 1880, 1884, 1960, and 1968...the main opponent lost the popular vote by an average of only 0.3 percent. This is in stark contrast to the winning margin in electoral votes for these elections, which averaged 17 percent." In those elections, the losing candidates might have been able to win over the small fraction of citizens needed for a popular vote victory; however, even if the candidates had done so, they still might not have been able to make up for their much wider deficit in the electoral vote. "One can conclude that approximately one in 14 presidential elections [has] resulted in a...President [who lost the popular vote], while one in five [has] nearly resulted in one." What if more of the close elections go in favor of the popular vote loser in the future? Given the historical trends shown by Durbin, as many as one-fifth of future elections may result in misrepresentation of the popular will with the candidate who has the most popular votes losing the presidency.

Table 1. Based on 2000 popular vote results, some minor changes result in Bush winning the popular vote and Gore winning the electoral vote. STATE
(EVs) ACTUAL VOTE HYPOTHETICAL VOTE CHANGE
BUSH GORE BUSH GORE
Texas
(32) 3,799,639 (59%) 2,433,746 (38%) 3,927,792 (61%) 2,305,593 (36%) 128,153 (2.00%)
California
(54) 4,567,429 (42%) 5,861,203 (53%) 4,677,088 (43%) 5,861,203 (52%) 109,659 (1.00%)
New York
(33) 2,403,374 (35%) 4,107,697 (60%) 2,471,594 (36%) 4,039,477 (59%) 68,220 (1.00%)
Florida
(25) 2,912,790 49%) 2,912,253 (49%) 2,912,521 (49%) 2,912,522 (49%) 269 (0.005%)
Nationwide 50,456,141 (48%) 50,996,039 (48%) 50,761,904 (48%) 50,690,276 (48%) 306,301 (0.29%)
Electoral Votes 271 266 246 291

Indeed, the Electoral College is such an unreliable representative of the popular will that in a close election it could easily deliver victory to either candidate without him/her gaining the most popular votes. Last year's election illustrates this. While in reality the Electoral College gave Bush the presidency in spite of losing the popular vote, if only 0.29% of voters had changed their minds in four states the opposite would have occurred: Gore would have lost the popular vote but won the presidency (see Table 1). It is quite conceivable that Bush could have convinced an additional 2% of voters in his home state of Texas to vote for him, and another 1% of California and New York voters; furthermore, if Gore had taken just 269 popular votes from Bush in Florida, then Gore would have been elected president while Bush won the popular vote. Thus, the Electoral College does not do a good job of portraying the national will if, with minor changes, it can elect either candidate in a close race without the winner receiving the popular vote.

Even when the popular vote winner is elected, the Electoral College can still misrepresent the popular support given to candidates. In 1972, George McGovern won 38% of the popular vote, but received only 17 electoral votes; McGovern's supporters, even though a fairly large percentage of American voters, were represented by only 3% of the electors. A similar situation occurred in 1984, when Walter Mondale won 41% of the popular vote, but was thumped in the Electoral College 525-13. Ross Perot's Electoral College showing in 1992 was even more unrepresentative of his popular support. He captured 19% of the popular vote, but won no electoral votes. Thus, people can come out and vote for a candidate, sometimes in large numbers, but the Electoral College will not always reflect (or even recognize) their efforts.

Along with sometimes misrepresenting the will of the people, the second problem I see with the Electoral College is that it discriminates between voters by making some people's votes worth more than others'. Let's take, for example, Wyoming. It cast 218,351 popular votes in last year's presidential election. Since Wyoming had three electoral votes, the ratio of popular votes per electoral vote was 218,351:3, or 72,784:1. In California, which had fifty-four electoral votes, 10,965,856 people cast ballots for president. Here, the ratio is quite different: one elector for every 203,071 votes. Thus, in choosing electors, a Californian's vote is worth about one third as much as the vote of a citizen of Wyoming. The same unequal valuing occurred during 1988:

...the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdictions of Alaska, Delaware, the District of Columbia, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming carried the same voting strength in the Electoral College (21 electoral votes) as the 9,614,000 persons of voting age in the State of Florida.
Our current system discriminates against some citizens by giving their votes unequal weight.

Another way that the current system discriminates is by encouraging candidates to campaign in certain states and not others. Generally speaking, states in a presidential election are divided into three categories: states a candidate knows he/she will lose, states a candidate is certain to win, and states which are close. Under the Electoral College, a candidate has no reason to campaign in states where he/she is hopelessly behind. If a candidate loses, then it does not matter by how much, for he/she still gets zero electoral votes. As noted during last year's election, "Candidates spend very little time in states they expect to lose. Gore has popped up in Indiana, for example, not once since May, or about as often as Bush has traveled to Massachusetts (once)." The same is true in states where a candidate is significantly ahead. If he/she is going to win the state's electoral votes, then why would he/she care about his/her margin of victory? The Electoral College gives candidates little incentive to campaign in states where they are certain to win or loose; consequently, the candidates do not need to give voters in those states much attention.

On the other hand, candidates have every reason to give time and attention to voters in swing states, where the race is close. These states hold the key to victory for the candidates. With all other states virtually decided, it is the winner in enough swing states who is elected president. As a result, the votes of people in toss-up states matter significantly more because just a few votes might swing an entire state and shift a lot of electoral votes from one candidate to another. When discussing the 1960 election, Sen. Thomas Dodd commented:

The shift of a few thousand votes in Illinois and New Jersey could have changed the result of an election as close as this past one. There is something wrong with an election system which hinges, not on the vote of 70 million, but on the vote of several thousand in a few key states.
Last year, Gore would have won if just 269 voters in Florida had switched their votes. In no other state did a group of 269 citizens hold such power. The current system discriminates between voters by making it much more important for the candidates to campaign for swing-state votes than for votes in less contested states.
The Electoral College also discriminates by not taking into account the voter turnout in a state. Two states might each have an equal number of electoral votes; however, on election day more people might come to the polls in one state. Even with this varying voter turnout, the state with less popular votes would still get the same number of electoral votes. For example, last year three states, Oregon, Iowa, and Mississippi, had seven electoral votes. In Oregon, 1,533,968 people voted, and 1,315,563 citizens cast ballots in Iowa; however, only 994,184 people cast ballots in Mississippi. Yet, Mississippi, even though fewer of its citizens voted, received the exact same number of electoral votes. Thus, the Electoral College discriminates against people who live in states with high turnouts.

Besides giving disproportionate weight to certain voters, the third reason for abolishing the Electoral College is that it allows for a number of bizarre election scenarios. One of the scenarios could come about because the Constitution says that "Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors...." This leaves the doors wide open to a number of possibilities. Currently, all the states' legislatures use a popular vote to pick electors, but any state could change its system. A legislature of, say, Wisconsin could choose its electors by holding a pie-eating contest on the lawn of the governor's mansion. The eleven people who eat the most pies would become Wisconsin's electors. Of course, a pie-eating selection process is a little far-fetched, but a legislature could cancel the popular election and choose electors itself. A dominant party could then guarantee that its candidate would win that state's electoral votes. This came close to happening last year, when, during the presidential election dispute in Florida, "the Republican-led Florida House of Representatives entered the electoral fray...voting to name a slate of electors to guarantee victory for...Bush." If a legislature was to give itself the power to choose electors on a permanent basis, they would create the strange situation of the people in one state not voting for president on election day.

Also, a second bizarre scenario could occur if an elector breaks the party line. This has happened in the past. From 1948 to 1988, seven electors have bolted. In 1972, a Republican elector from Virginia voted for Libertarian candidate John Hospers. The most recent example of electors not doing what they are expected to do happened last year when "Barbara Lett Simmons, a Gore elector from the District of Columbia, left her ballot blank to protest what she called the capital's 'colonial status'...." Simmons's abstention resulted in Bush winning 271-266, rather than 271-267 if she had voted for Gore. Theoretically, a whole group of electors could come together and change its votes to another candidate. Or, in a really close election, the presidency could be determined by the change of one elector's vote. Last year, if just three electors had switched from Bush to Gore, then Gore would have won the election. Under the current system, the selection of the president lies in the hands of just a few electors.

A third strange situation could occur if the Electoral College elected members of two different parties as president and vice president. Since the Constitution has electors vote for the offices separately, they could elect a Republican to one and a Democrat to another. In 1976, an elector from the State of Washington voted for Ronald Reagan, who was not even running for president. However, Ford's running mate, Bob Dole, received one more vote on the vice-presidential ballot than Ford did on the presidential ballot. Thus, while Jimmy Carter beat Ford 297-240 in the presidential election, Carter's running-mate Walter Mondale defeated Dole by the smaller margin of 297-241 in the vice presidential election. In a close election, if just a few electors changed their vote on one ballot but not the other, then we could end up with a president and vice president from different parties.

In response to these three problems in the Electoral College, theoretically we could implement nationwide the electoral system currently used in Maine and Nebraska; however, this would not adequately solve the problems of the Electoral College. In Maine and Nebraska, one elector is granted for each victory in a congressional district plus two electors for the statewide winner. However, the current weaknesses of the Electoral College would remain. First of all, the Electoral College could still misrepresent the popular will. "t would be likely, but not certain, that the electoral vote would more closely approximate the popular vote. (It would not have in 2000.)" If the Maine and Nebraska method was implemented nationwide, the popular vote winner could still lose the election.

Additionally, the state legislatures do not have much of an incentive to switch to such an electoral method, "For no southern Republican will allow such a change in his or her State unless and until northern Democrats permit it to happen in their States and vice-versa." States do not have a reason to limit their candidate's number of electoral votes. To prove this, we need only look to the election of 1800, when Thomas Jefferson and President John Adams were in a rematch after Adams had won in 1796. Because Jefferson's supporters in Virginia realized that he would have collected more electoral votes in 1796 if they had had a system where all the electors in the state went to the same candidate, they switched to have the winner in Virginia get all its electoral votes. "Adams's own base of Massachusetts immediately followed suit. By the end of the 19th century, nearly every state had adopted the practice we still follow today". Overall, a district allocation compromise will not work, because it does not solve enough problems and states have little incentive to implement it.

Upon close inspection, the Electoral College is an unacceptable method of electing our president. It can misrepresent the will of the people when there are discrepancies between the electoral vote and the popular vote. The Electoral College gives precedence to some citizens over others by giving people's votes unequal weight. In addition, it permits a number of bizarre scenarios which could swing the presidency from one candidate to another. The president of the United States holds the most powerful position in America, perhaps even in the world. It is imperative that we have a fair and reliable system for choosing who will hold that office. The Electoral College is not that system.

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latour999

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Reply #2 January 16, 2005 4:33:42 PM
from PoliticalMachine Forums

The method that was voted upon in Colorado I believe was going to be split by the popular vote. If the whole nation did that, the election would be decided by states with odd numbered electoral votes and those where a candidate can get at least 60 % of the EC vote.

Or California, where each 2% is worth 1 electoral vote

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latour999

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Reply #3 January 16, 2005 9:01:06 PM
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Try again. If this was true then GW would have gotten *some* of the CA EC votes. As it stands he got none.

I am saying that hypothetically, if all states were to adopt this system, the election would be decided in large states, such as CA. 55 electoral votes/100% possible (unrealistic but possible) popular votes equals about 1 electoral vote for every 2%, as opposed to states with 3-5 electoral votes such as VT, SD, AK, etc. where each electoral vote would be worth 20-33% of the popular vote, where apart from maybe DC, it would be nearly even splits in pretty much every conceivable scenario. The only states where is would be possible to get more electoral votes would be large states like CA, where a swing of 2% would swing you one electoral vote, therefore all of the candidates (especially 3rd parties) would focus only on large states like CA, NY, TX and FL, where 2-4% would gain you an extra electoral vote. Try again.

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Reply #4 January 16, 2005 9:35:16 PM
from JoeUser Forums

Reply #2 By: latour999 - 1/16/2005 4:33:42 PM
The method that was voted upon in Colorado I believe was going to be split by the popular vote. If the whole nation did that, the election would be decided by states with odd numbered electoral votes and those where a candidate can get at least 60 % of the EC vote.

Or California, where each 2% is worth 1 electoral vote

Try again. If this was true then GW would have gotten *some* of the CA EC votes. As it stands he got none.

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Reply #5 January 16, 2005 10:04:55 PM
from PoliticalMachine Forums

Try again. If this was true then GW would have gotten *some* of the CA EC votes. As it stands he got none.

Were going to have to work on your reading skills. We are talking about different ways of counting the electoral vote, not how they were counted. I believe that using a representational system, wherein each congressional district is its own electoral vote, instead of lumped winner take all, it would be more representative of the popular vote in an individual state. This system is used in Nebraska and Maine currently. This is the first election that one of those states split their vote. Colorado put forth a system that would split the vote by popular vote. In most states this would not work. It would make the electoral college too close. In Colorado this would have meant a 5-4 split of their votes, and this would be the case in almost every election for them unless somone were to pull over 74 % of the vote. Almost every state would split their votes that way. States that have an even number EC votes would split them down the middle, while those with odd numbers would have an extra for the winner. Only in the largest of states could any margin of victory be presented. In the representational system, it would come down to essentially the same vote as now as some of California and New York would go Republican, while parts of Texas and the deep South would go Democrat.

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whoman69

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Reply #6 January 16, 2005 10:45:32 PM
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We talked about Tilden-Hayes on another thread. So that's a coincidence. Link

There is an advantage in the electoral college for smaller states, just the same as there is an advantage for smaller states in the Senate. Without those built in advatages, those states would be totally ignored in the electorate. Going by a popular vote, who is going to pay one visit to the loosly populated western states. In a popular vote, the larger metropolitan areas would gain even more leverage than they do now. Even the mid size swing states would be ignored. Its much easier for the candidates to win a huge mandate in their areas of strength then to try to break a deadlock in a state with only a million or so votes. We would see candidates visiting only their strongholds and ignore the rest of the country. Under the representational system like they have in Nebraska and Maine, candidates would need a broader base of appeal than to simply win in their historical strongholds. If Dem Candidate A is going to the deep south to try to win some votes there, Republican candidate B would have to counter by winning some votes in the NE and west coast.

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Reply #7 January 16, 2005 11:16:14 PM
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The next was in 1876 when Rutherford Hayes won 185-184. Samuel Tilden won the popular vote by 264,292. After much controversy the one vote victory stood. But to understand why, we go back to the debates that created the Electoral College.

One of the major issues during the Constitutional Convention was the balance of power between large and small states. To resolve this, the Framers created the House with representation based entirely on population and the Senate with each state having equal votes regardless of size. The Electoral College combines these two concepts with a state's votes equal to its number of Representatives and Senators. The result is a system primarily based on population with smaller states having their voice slightly increased.

Back to 1876, Hayes won 10-4 in states with 6 or less electors. The slight increase in small state's representation won Hayes the Electoral College. But since it was designed this way, doesn't this prove that it worked instead of failed? In baseball a tie goes to the runner. In Presidential races a tie, or at least close, typically goes to the winner of a vast majority of small states.

Actually, this is inaccurate. The Hayes-Tilden election was not in fact decided by the election results at all, but rather by an electoral commission consisting of 8 republicans and 7 democrats (the commission was to have had 7 republicans and 8 democrats, but the expected 15th member of the commission, a justice of the Supreme Court, resigned prior to being appointed). This brings us forward to the election of 2000, where the election was not decided by electors but rather by the supreme court (along a partisan vote, exactly like in 1877).

What happened in 1876 was that Louisiana, Florida and South Carolina submitted two different sets of returns each, one democrat and one republican. Tilden would have picked up at least one of the states had the returns been submitted correctly historians argue, especially considering he had a 247,448 lead in popular vote. Winning any one of the states would have given him the election. In 2000, the Supreme Court voted to give the presidency to George W. Bush. These two cases have more at fault than just the Electoral College.

That being said, the Electoral College should at least go so far as to not give an advantage to smaller states. The electoral count of each state should be its members of the House of Representatives only rather than including the two senators (at the very least, without other reform to the Electoral College).

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Reply #8 January 16, 2005 11:49:04 PM
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Interesting, I just read that Tilden-Hayes thread before coming back here and seeing your comment. I must say, you know your history very well. I would have had to go back and look to remember all of those facts.

Its called the internet. I had heard of these elections, but the data comes from sites I can look up the information. A good site on the raw numbers of past presidential elections is http://presidentelect.org/ Link

Now, the problem with the logic that the electoral college gives importance to small states is that even with 3 votes, candidates won't visit small states. On top of that, small states tend to be heavily republican (Hawaii is an exception). I have no problem with the electoral college, but I feel that it should not give advantage to a small state and should not give the entire state to a candidate. I think the electoral votes should be divided among all of the candidates based on their support. This would also add credence to third parties who have some votes in every state, but not enough to win any state.

That would be true, but in a straight popular vote, those states would have even less say then they do now. Candidates do visit states that have as few as 5 electoral votes. Bush did well in visiting West Virginia, which had been a Democratic stronghold going back to the New Deal. To split the votes based upon a straight vote would mean that states with even numbered votes would split their vote down the middle in almost every election unless the state had more than 10 EC. Lets look at the plan in Colorado which wanted to do just that. Colorado currently has 9 EC. For a candidate to break the 5-4 balance of most elections they would need to garner more than 66 % of the vote. That doesn't happen too often. May as well not even vote in those states, just chalk them up as split. The election would be decided by the differences in the largest states and the EC would almost never be a mandate. I can't agree with the third party candidate analogy. Ross Perot gathered about 20 % of the vote in 1992. If he were given that % of the Electoral College, then the election would have gone to the House to vote on as Clinton would not have gotten an electoral college mandate. Parties would be forced to make alliances with 3rd parties in order to gain a majority.

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Reply #9 January 17, 2005 12:04:00 AM
from JoeUser Forums

Interesting, I just read that Tilden-Hayes thread before coming back here and seeing your comment. I must say, you know your history very well. I would have had to go back and look to remember all of those facts.

Now, the problem with the logic that the electoral college gives importance to small states is that even with 3 votes, candidates won't visit small states. On top of that, small states tend to be heavily republican (Hawaii is an exception). I have no problem with the electoral college, but I feel that it should not give advantage to a small state and should not give the entire state to a candidate. I think the electoral votes should be divided among all of the candidates based on their support. This would also add credence to third parties who have some votes in every state, but not enough to win any state.

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Reply #10 January 17, 2005 12:33:51 AM
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Reply #11 January 17, 2005 1:05:57 AM
from JoeUser Forums

In the end, it is really an all or nothing system. All States need to change to the split the vote ticket (or at least the big ones) or none. If only NY, CA, Ill or traditionally FL changed to a split system without the rest, the Democrat party will not see a President for a long time. Doing a half and half system is a Receipt for problems.

In order to change the EC, it would require a change to the Constitution, which would take the choice away from the States. I believe the Federal Government already dictates too much to the States as it is. No change IMO is needed. If a States wants to water down its vote, let it (I personally wish CA would), that is their choice.

That's My Short Two Cents

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whoman69

Join Date 10/2004

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Reply #12 January 17, 2005 1:33:00 PM
from PoliticalMachine Forums

In order to change the EC, it would require a change to the Constitution, which would take the choice away from the States. I believe the Federal Government already dictates too much to the States as it is. No change IMO is needed. If a States wants to water down its vote, let it (I personally wish CA would), that is their choice.

Were talking about a federal election which is the perview (sp?) of the federal government. Its not watering down their vote, simply being more representative of the will of its people. Certainly if only Dem strongholds do it then the Republicans would feast for years. A change is needed because the electoral college as presently set does not represent the people's will. A straight popular vote would ensure government by the large urban areas.

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