Because of
1. Preservation of state sovereignty
Since the college is based the representation from the Senate and House, each state has a certain amount of power in each election, that is almost ideally balanced. The larger states are more important to winning an election than the smaller states, as they have the most electoral votes. Perpendicularly, the smaller states have more influence than the larger states. States like Alaska and Wyoming actually end up being overrepresented in electors. If it was based completely proportionally, Alaska would only get 1 elector, and Wyoming would have less than a fraction of one (both currently have 3 electors). I see this as a good thing—the smaller states aren't shafted by the larger states, but they aren't granted too much power either. Without state sovereignty state borders might as well not exist; it becomes less about where people live as all areas are ultimately equal. Which isn't fair; each state is its own specific entity entitled to its own specific influence.
2. Dispersal of representation
This is an extrapolation of the first, but nevertheless important. Without the electoral college and state sovereignty, all a candidate would have to do would be to win over the more populous areas of the country. Since this is almost always synonymous with cities, the urban vote would be the only vote voiced in the election. Think of how many past elections would be different if they each relied on the urban vote! The electoral college keeps the rural vote from getting shafted, while still allowing other areas their say as well.
3. Removal of the public from the election
Generally this is used as an argument against the electoral college, but its important to note that this was intended by the founders of the Constitution. Obviously there are the occasional elections where the winner didn't as much of the popular vote as the loser. But this was foreseen by the founders, and it is always justified due to state sovereignty. Another thing to note is that of the House representatives, senators, and the president, the president is the only one still elected by an indirect election. Its important to remember that in this case the power of the public isn't being lost, it's just being applied differently.
4. Centralization around moderate politics
While third parties can often earn admirable portions of the popular vote, they almost NEVER earn any electoral votes for their cause. If they ever did, it would work much like the way other pluralist popular vote systems work, with the third party merging with a closer party in an attempt to beat the opposition. Keeping the two-party system intact prevents any extremist candidate from winning, as control of the middle is ESSENTIAL to an electoral victory.
5. Lack of past problems
This just refers to the idea that we depend on electors for our vote; what if they ever voted against the public? Its never happened since its inception, and I have a hard time believing it will ever happen. Electors who voted away from the norm (“faithless” electors) would almost certainly lose their public trust, political position, and likely any chances for future political careers.
6. Prevention of disaster
But if an elector ever did need to vote contrary to the public, it would almost undoubtedly happen in mass form. Say Ozzy Osbourne or somebody was running for president. Can you imagine? He would DEFINITELY win over the popular vote. It would be the electors' decision in this case to choose a more competent candidate in the interest of the public. They would certainly do it as a group, and I have a hard time believing they would be afterwards deemed faithless electors. Obviously this is an extreme case. The electors will only vote against the public if circumstances are ESPECIALLY demanding.
In essence, I guess it would be conclusive for me to say that while I do understand the opposition to the electoral college, in the end I don't feel like there's anything wrong with it. Aren't there other things we could be focused on fixing?
8 comments:
Great post Tyler! So proud to be your uncle. :)
Seriously though, I appreciate all the points you made. As one who's usually with the "anti-EC" crowd, I was really interested to hear the arguments for keeping it. I think they're good arguments you make, and I agree with you that the current system seems to be working just fine. With plenty of other problems to fix, we might as well focus on those.
I was one of the "4" on the poll, but I think you've convinced me to change my answer!
Thanks for the post.
Good post Tyler. Let me play devil's advocate for a minute.
I agree that it's worked well enough in the past. I also agree that the sovereignty argument had merit at one time.
It was valid when the country was young and the states needed to be vigilant in the defense of their rights against proponents of a strong central government. But that isn't the case any more. Separation of powers is clearly spelled out now. So I believe the strongest and most used argument to keep the College is based on a fear that was real once but isn't any more.
The present system of electing the President does not "work well" because the winner-take-all rule (currently used by 48 of 50 states) awards all of a state's electoral votes to the candidate who gets the most votes in the state. Because of these 48 state laws, presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the concerns of voters of states that they cannot possibly win or lose. Instead, candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of "battleground" states. In 2004, 88% of the money was focused onto just 9 closely divided battleground states, and 99% was concentrated in just 16 states. Two thirds of the states, are effectively disenfranchised in presidential elections. Another effect of the winner-take-all rule is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide -- something that happens in 1 in 14 elections (1 in 7 non-landslide elections).
After more than 10,000 statewide elections in the past two hundred years, there is no evidence of any tendency toward a massive proliferation of third-party candidates in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate receiving the most votes throughout the entire jurisdiction served by the office. No such tendency has emerged in other jurisdictions, such as congressional districts or state legislative districts. There is no evidence or reason to expect the emergence of some unique new political dynamic that would promote multiple candidacies if the President were elected in the same manner as every other elected official in the United States.
Based on historical evidence, there is far more fragmentation of the vote under the current state-by-state system of electing the President than in elections in which the winner is simply the candidate who receives the most popular votes in the jurisdiction involved.
Under the current state-by-state system of electing the President (in which the candidate who receives a plurality of the popular vote wins all of the state’s electoral votes), minor-party candidates have significantly affected the outcome in six (40%) of the 15 presidential elections in the past 60 years (namely the 1948, 1968, 1980, 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections). The reason that the current system has encouraged so many minor-party candidates and so much fragmentation of the vote is that a presidential candidate with no hope of winning a plurality of the votes nationwide has 51 separate opportunities to shop around for particular states where he can affect electoral votes or where he might win outright. Thus, under the current system, segregationists such as Strom Thurmond (1948) or George Wallace (1968) won electoral votes in numerous Southern states, although they had no chance of receiving the most popular votes nationwide. In addition, candidates such as John Anderson (1980), Ross Perot (1992 and 1996), and Ralph Nader (2000) did not win a plurality of the popular vote in any state, but managed to affect the outcome by switching electoral votes in numerous particular states.
The people vote for President now in all 50 states and have done so in most states for 200 years.
So, the issue raised by the National Popular Vote legislation is not about whether there will be "mob rule" in presidential elections, but whether the "mob" in a handful of closely divided battleground states, such as Florida, get disproportionate attention from presidential candidates, while the "mobs" of the vast majority of states are ignored. In 2004, candidates spent over two thirds of their visits and two-thirds of their money in just 6 states and 99% of their money in just 16 states, while ignoring the rest of the country.
The current system does NOT provide some kind of check on the "mobs." 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 who meet briefly in mid-December to cast their totally predictable votes in accordance with their pre-announced pledges.
The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.
Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).
Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York's use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming--both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.
The concept of a national popular vote for President is far from being politically “radioactive” in small states, because the small states recognize they are the most disadvantaged group of states under the current system.
When presidential candidates campaign to win the electoral votes of closely divided battleground states, such as in Ohio and Florida, 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.
Under a national popular vote, every vote is equally important politically. There is nothing special about a vote cast in a big city. When every vote is equal, candidates of both parties know that they must seek out voters in small, medium, and large towns throughout the state in order to win the state. A vote cast in a big city is no more valuable than a vote cast in a small town or rural area.
Another way to look at this is that there are approximately 300 million Americans. 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 is only 19% of the population of the United States. Even if one makes the far-fetched assumption that a candidate won 100% of the votes in the nation’s top five cities, he would only have won 6% of the national vote.
Further evidence of the way a nationwide presidential campaign would be run comes from the way that national advertisers conduct nationwide sales campaigns. National advertisers seek out customers in small, medium, and large towns of every small, medium, and large state. National advertisers do not advertise only in big cities. Instead, they go after every single possible customer, regardless of where the customer is located. National advertisers do not write off Indiana or Illinois merely because their competitor has an 8% lead in sales in those states. And, a national advertiser with an 8%-edge over its competitor does not stop trying to make additional sales in Indiana or Illinois merely because they are in the lead.
In Gallup polls since 1944, only about 20% of the public has supported the current system of awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the presidential candidate who receives the most votes in each separate state (with about 70% opposed and about 10% undecided). The recent Washington Post, Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard University poll shows 72% support for direct nationwide election of the President. This national result is similar to recent polls in Vermont (75%), Maine (71%), Arkansas (74%), California (69%), Connecticut (73%), Massachusetts (73%), Michigan (70%), Missouri (70%), North Carolina (62%), and Rhode Island (74%). In short, the public believes that the candidate that receives the most votes should get elected.
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