Dear Doug,

I can see that you’ve thought carefully about this, but I think you’ve missed the forest for the trees.

The complexities of this issue do not alter the simple fact that an electoral college (or anything except direct popular election of the president) makes one person’s vote worth more than another’s.

And, in any case, frankly, all the arguments you make about broad support (vs more support) and minorities (and protecting them) strike me as arguments AGAINST the electoral college.

But it doesn’t matter. Either you believe in democracy and “one person, one vote” and favor direct popular election of the president, or you believe that some people’s votes should count more than others.

Steve

P.S. Your statement says that “Al Gore ‘won’ the popular vote but George W. Bush won the actual election.” But it seems to me that you got the scare quotes in the wrong place. There is good evidence that — and it looked to much of the rest of the world as if — more Floridians tried to vote for Gore than for Bush, and that it was thus voter harrassment, fraud, and a partisan court that made Bush president. In other words, some would say “Al Gore won (no scare quotes) the popular vote — but George W. Bush ‘won’ the actual election”. In any case, the 2000 election made it difficult for us to be a voice for democracy in the world, and the Electoral College is one reason why.

The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the state-by-state winner-take-all rule (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but now used by 48 states), under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign events and ad money in just six states, and 98% in just 15 states (CO, FL, IN, IA, MI, MN, MO, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI). Massachusetts (the 13th largest population state, with 12 electoral college votes) and 19 of the 22 smallest and medium-small states (with less than 7 electoral college votes) were not among them. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). In 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states; over 80% in nine states; and over 99% of their money in 16 states, and candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states.

Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections.

Steve:

Either you believe in democracy and “one person, one vote” and favor direct popular election of the president, or you believe that some people’s votes should count more than others.

If you read the FEC document on the history, the Founders indeed considered this.  But they were concerned that candidates would mere be chosen by the bigger states.

A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region.  At worst, no president would emerge with a popular  majority sufficient to govern the whole country.  At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones.

Indeed, in the intervening years, we’ve overcome the problem of not enough information, but as Taranto notes, we would still have the same problem; 11 states alone could choose the President.

Either you believe in democracy and “one person, one vote” and favor direct popular election of the president, or you believe that some people’s votes should count more than others.

As did the Founding Fathers, the office of the President — one person in charge of the entire executive branch of this large and diverse country and Commander-in-Chief of the military — needs to have, as much as possible, the specter of favoritism removed from his/her election.  you seem to think that the dictionary definition of "democracy" includes "one man, one vote".  All it is is the rule of the majority.  Our Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that this was a broad majority, not a thin enough slice to get past the gate.  And they wanted to make sure that the emphasis was on "broad", not on "majority", so the method even includes the possibility that a bare majority is not enough to govern.  I believe they were right.

Kohler:

Presidential candidates concentrate their attention on only a handful of closely divided “battleground” states and their voters.

Take a look at the graphic I referred FFF to.  You would be replacing battleground states with battleground cities; even smaller areas.  Most of New York State would become part of flyover country.  This is better?

While I favor the notion behind the NPV (one man/one vote), I’d have to agree that methodolgy being pushed is seriously flawed.

The NPV site argues against the “myth” of vote fraud and claims the actual numbers are small enough to be insignificant. I don’t have the actual stats so I’ll take their word for it. What they ignore however, is that in any given election between 2 and 3% of all votes cast are never counted. (Testimony to that effect was given by several electoral scholars during the Bush V. Gore USSC case.)

In our nation’s history we’ve had a whopping total of four elections where the EC votes played a questionable role. One of those was prior to a national voting standard and several of the States held no popular elections at all. That leaves three where there were actual state-level popular votes conducted and ballots tabulated. (1876, 1888 and 2000)

In all of those three cases the winning margin in the total popular vote counts was lower than the minimum 2% of votes that were never counted so even a NPV wouldn’t have resolved the issue. All three would have resulted in endless nation-wide recounts. In fact 16 of the elections since 1876 would have ended with a President who would have won by a margin that was less than the uncounted vote total. Instead of three disputed elections, we would have had 16.

Again, the NPV supporters claim (in the “Myths” section on their WWW site) that endless recounts won’t happen because there are deadlines set in law for final vote counts. But as we saw in 2000, the courts are faced with questions of competing legal requirements (laws that set dates for counts to be finalized against laws that set counting standards, etc…) the courts are left to decide which law prevails and, as the FL courts did in 2000, the deadline can and has lost out before. Would the same people who cried to “Let the recounts continue!” in 2000 and now support the NPV be willing to accept a loss in the future based on a date set in law? I doubt it.

Kohler, in his/her post earlier said “The current system of electing the president ensures that the candidates, after the primaries, do not reach out to all of the states and their voters. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or care about the voter concerns in the dozens of states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind.”

The NPV, for all the hype, doesn’t change this scenario much. You can simply substitue “County” for “State” and that will be the net effect of a NPV. Yeah, some major cities across the country will suddenly get attention from candidates. The smaller communities in the suburbs and in rural areas will never see them. I suppose those rural voters will get what they need to know by watching TV, right? After all, all of the major media outlets are in the bigger cities…

No, instead of focusing on 12 or 13 states the candidates will focus on a handful of major cities. Here’s a piece of food for thought – the top 15 metro areas in the U.S. hold just over 50% of the total U.S. population. Assuming the percentage of eligible voters is fairly equeal across the entire U.S. population in all regions, those 15 areas are all any candidate needs to win. Not only will most states still be ignored, many regions with those states that do get attention will be ignored as well.

The NPV, while laudable in it’s ideals, fails to fix the very problem is is intended to fix and creates a real possibility of even larger problems.

The population of the top five cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia) is only 6% of the population of the United States and the population of the top 50 cities (going as obscurely far down in name recognition as Arlington, TX) is only 19% of the population of the United States.

When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, under the state-by-state winner-take-all rules, the big cities in those battleground states do not receive all the attention, much less control the outcome. Cleveland and Miami certainly did not receive all the attention or control the outcome in Ohio and Florida in 2000 and 2004.

Likewise, under a national popular vote, every vote everywhere will be equally important politically. There will be nothing special about a vote cast in a big city or big state. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties will seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the states in order to win. A vote cast in a big city or state will be equal to a vote cast in a small state, town, or rural area.

For example, in California state-wide elections, candidates for governor or U.S. Senate don’t campaign just in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and those places don’t control the outcome (otherwise California wouldn’t have recently had Republican governors Reagan, Dukemejian, Wilson, and Schwarzenegger). A vote in rural Alpine county is just an important as a vote in Los Angeles.

If the National Popular Vote bill were to become law, it would not change the need for candidates to build a winning coalition across demographics. Any candidate who yielded, for example, the 21% of Americans who live in rural areas in favor of a “big city” approach would not likely win the national popular vote. Candidates would still have to appeal to a broad range of demographics, and perhaps even more so, because the election wouldn’t be capable of coming down to just one demographic, such as voters in Ohio.

There have been 22,000 electoral votes cast since presidential elections became competitive (in 1796), and only 10 have been cast for someone other than the candidate nominated by the elector’s own political party. The electors are dedicated party activists of the winning party who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges. Faithless electors are not a practical problem, and most states have complete authority to remedy any problem there could be, by means of state law.
If a Democratic presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Democratic party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting block. If a Republican presidential candidate receives the most votes, the state’s dedicated Republican party activists who have been chosen as its slate of electors become the Electoral College voting block. The winner of the presidential election is the candidate who collects 270 votes from Electoral College voters from among the winning party’s dedicated activists.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld state laws guaranteeing faithful voting by presidential electors (because the states have plenary power over presidential electors).

The U.S. Constitution, existing federal statutes, and independent state statutes guarantee “finality” in presidential elections long before the inauguration day in January.

The U.S. Constitution (Article II, section 1, clause 4) provides:
“The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.”[Spelling as per original]

The common nationwide date for meeting of the Electoral College has been set by federal law as the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December.

Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote approach, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a “final determination” prior to the common nationwide date for the meeting of the Electoral College. In particular, the U.S. Supreme Court has made it clear that the states are expected to make their “final determination” six days before the Electoral College meets.

In addition, in almost all states, state statutes already impose independent (typically earlier) deadlines for finalizing the count for the presidential election. The U.S. Supreme Court has also ruled that state election officials and the state judiciary must conduct counts and recounts in presidential elections within the confines of existing state election laws.

It may be argued that the schedule established by the U.S. Constitution may sometimes rush the count (and possibly even create injustice). However, there can be no argument that this schedule exists in the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, and state statutes; that this schedule guarantees “finality” prior to the meeting of the Electoral College in mid-December. This existing constitutional schedule would govern the National Popular Vote compact in exactly the same way that it governs elections under the current system.

Dear Doug,

Thanks for responding to my post. You’ve created a useful forum here and we’ve seen some interesting discussion. But I think you’re still missing the forest for the trees.

In your response, you said “you seem to think that the dictionary definition of ‘democracy’ includes ‘one man, one vote’. All it is is the rule of the majority.” Actually, I don’t think there is such a thing as “THE dictionary definition”; there are many dictionaries, and (as Wikipedia notes) “there is no specific, universally accepted definition of ‘democracy’.” And, while it is interesting to consider those definitions (in fact, Wikipedia also says “in a representative democracy, every vote has equal weight”), my point does not depend on dictionary definitions. Definitions are trees; here’s forest (as I see it) — Either you believe in “one person, one vote” and favor direct popular election of the president, or you believe that some people’s votes should count more than other’s.

You may have good reasons for favoring the Electoral College. By the way, I’ve read your posts, links, and the responses here, though, and I don’t find your reasons persuasive. But, as I said, that doesn’t matter (to me, those reasons are trees, not the forest). Either one believes in the rule of the majority and favors direct popular election of the president, or one believes (for whatever reasons) that some people’s votes should count more than other’s.

You refer to a “broad majority”, but it’s not any kind of majority if the presidential candidate who receives more popular votes than his or her opponent does not become the president.

It’s also interesting to hear all this talk about “the Founding Fathers”. It’s useful to consider their intentions (and their disagreements), but given the fact that some of them owned slaves and that they intended that women should not be allowed to vote, their imputed intentions don’t carry a lot of weight with me. Again, it doesn’t matter. The Electoral College still means that some people’s votes count more than other’s.

Steve