Commentary
Electoral College remains the best way to pick a president
By Abou Amara Jr.
Abou Amara Jr. recently graduated with a master of public policy degree from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School of Public Affairs.
Before last Tuesday's election, the pundit class on Fox, MSNBC and CNN talked about the possibility of a split decision, with Mitt Romney winning the national popular vote and President Obama winning the Electoral College.
The nation was spared that situation when the president won both. Yet, Facebook and Twitter featured people on both sides of the aisle calling for the end to, as one critic said, "this archaic method of picking a president."
On the surface, the arguments in favor of ending the Electoral College are understandable. It makes intuitive sense to use a national popular vote; whoever gets the most votes gets to be president. However, a deeper examination makes clear that using a national popular vote system to elect a president presents serious problems. The Electoral College is a much better system.
First, the Electoral College compares apples-to-apples votes. Right now, each state decides who is eligible to vote. The rules vary widely in areas such as allowing felons to vote and requiring a photo ID. States also differ in their methods of voting. For example, in Washington state, every voter casts his ballot by mail. Compare that to the system in Minnesota, where we have multiple methods of casting ballots. Having multiple voting laws in place would make a national popular vote unfair.
Imagine a person with one felony on his record who lives in Virginia and a person with one felony on his record here in Minnesota. According to national popular vote supporters, their votes should count the same. But, in reality, only one can vote. In Virginia, once a person gets a felony on his record, he loses his right to vote permanently. Here in Minnesota, people who have a felony on their record are able to regain voting rights once they finish the terms of their probation. A national popular vote system would allow this type of apples-to-oranges eligibility and voting. The Electoral College is fairer because it awards votes based on all eligible voters in a state being subject to the same voting rules.
Second, the Electoral College quarantines litigation and election disputes to a particular state. Imagine another Bush v. Gore election, in which votes cast were contested. That type of scenario would cast doubt on the integrity of the whole election system, rather than just the integrity of a particular state. A national popular vote system would make massive voter fraud much easier. The Electoral College helps maintain integrity in our election system.
Third, the Electoral College promotes moderation and forces candidates to appeal to a variety of groups, including minority groups; no candidate can win with support from just one region of the country. One reason Mitt Romney failed to do well in swing states was that he was not able to appeal to Latinos, African-Americans or Asian-Americans. If a national popular vote were in place, Romney could have focused more of his efforts on turning out the vote in solidly conservative states such as Alabama and Mississippi, rather than focusing on moderate and independent voters in swing states. The Electoral College forces candidates to appeal to a wider swath of voters.
Finally, there's no need for a national popular vote because, with a few exceptions, the Electoral College essentially is one right now. It's extremely rare for a presidential candidate to win the Electoral College and lose the popular vote. In the 54 presidential elections in American history, only four people have won the Electoral College while losing the popular vote: John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and George W. Bush in 2000.
With all the flaws of a national popular vote system, as well as the safeguards the Electoral College brings, I'll take a 50-4 record any day of the week. The Electoral College is the best way to elect our presidents.
Comments (22)
Is Amara just a troll? If he is serious, his "arguement" that only a few elections went to the candidate who lost the election makes it almost superfluous to look at the rest of his contentions. But then...
Back to the Gore v. Bush election, the improper voting process skewed the national election results...giving this much power to a partisan state activity is, hmm, rather significant. To make sure of apple-to-apple activities in a national election, get rid of the archaic and abused state control of the process when voting for Federal offices.
What you're saying is that we should just hold the Presidential election in Hamilton County Ohio because with the present system, that's what we do.
The popular vote totals are so skewed by the electoral system, that they are largely meaningless. Most of the larger states that are not battleground states) are solid blue (Texas is the exception). A Democratic candidate could easily run up huge margins in California, NY, NJ, PA, and IL, if more voters in these states went to the polls in a popular vote election where their votes mattered. Obama would have won by a much larger popular vote margin if the election were based on the popular vote. It's all moot. Smaller states, of which there are more of, are mostly red, and have disproportionate advantage with the current system. They would never vote for a constitutional amendment changing the system to popular vote.
Even when the election went to the candidate that lost the popular vote (and it should be pointed out that in 2000, had all the votes been counted in Florida, Gore would have won the electoral vote as well) you have to realize that the popular vote totals would have been very different if we elected a president by the popular vote.
A very poor analysis by this author--really, felons in one state versus another. What percentage of the vote is that? A stronger argument would be reforming the Electoral College to have the remaining 50 states follow the Nebraska/Maine model.
This is a pretty weak analysis. The only legitimate reason offered to defend the current system is the argument about voter laws differing from state to state, but that is a minor (and fixable) issue compared to the fact that 42 states get completely ignored. Also, the author finds a 50-4 record acceptable? This isn't football. In national elections, a 50-4 record is the equivalent of awarding 7-8 Senate seats to the losers of their elections.
Finally, the author claims that without the moderating impact of the electoral college, the candidates would not have to appeal to the center. That is garbage. In a 2-horse race, the winning candidate will always have to do a better job of appealing to the median voter than the other candidate. The question is whether they should be appealing to the median voter in the country or the median voter in Ohio. It is stunning that any logical person would think it should be the latter.
What about the idea of proportionally awarding electoral votes..? For example, if Wyoming has 3 votes...2 go to the Rebublicans...one to the Democrats...Right now, it is winner take all after 50% of popular vote is given to a particular candidate. Why not encourage voting in all the states this way? In states where there are persistent minority voters, many do not bother to vote for President...But with a more Proportional System, Democrats in Utah, say, would be eager to vote in a Federal election, and Republicans in Hawaii the same...Bringing proportionality to the electoral college would promote participation especially for those whose political views are usually in the minority in their states.
The electoral college is an ingenious method of combatting election fraud. Election fraud is most likely to be committed by the party in power in a particular state. But cheating in order to turn a 55% majority into a 90% majority serves no purpose. Whereas with a popular vote, crooked politicians at the local level could easily hijack the entire country. We've had noteworthy problems in Florida. But multiply that by 50, and that's what we would be looking at with a popular vote.
Not a very strong argument... The number of voter fraud cases in the 2008 election was in the single digits, out of 100,000,000 voters, and that number is likely to remain roughly the same, even with a direct vote system. As for the felons issue, the answer is simply to streamline election laws. A direct vote system, thus, is the best answer.
I love the idea of proportionally awarding electoral votes. I had never thought of that. Seems to me that that idea would compromise a good portion of everyone's comments.
I think the overall point of Mr. Amara's essay is that the electoral college preserves state control over a large portion of election decisions that have to be made pretty frequently, retaining state's rights. If the last four years of politics has taught us anything, you'd think it would be that forcing all states to abide by any uniform mandate, regardless of that mandate's logical validity, is ideologically problematic and logistically impossible in our country and should probably be avoided when possible. In this particular instance, it appears that that course of action also makes logical sense.
There is nothing incompatible between differences in state election laws and the concept of a national popular vote for President.
Under the current system, the electoral votes from all 50 states are comingled and simply added together, irrespective of the fact that the electoral-vote outcome from each state was affected by differences in state policies, including voter registration, ex-felon voting, hours of voting, amount and nature of advance voting, and voter identification requirements.
Under both the current system and the National Popular Vote compact, all of the people of the United States are impacted by the different election policies of the states. The procedures governing presidential elections in a closely divided battleground state (e.g., Florida and Ohio) can affect, and indeed have affected, the ultimate outcome of national elections.
The Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution permit states to conduct elections in varied ways. The National Popular Vote compact is patterned directly after existing federal law and preserves state control of elections and requires each state to treat as "conclusive" each other state's "final determination" of its vote for President.
The current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes maximizes the incentive and opportunity for fraud, coercion, intimidation, confusion, and voter suppression. A very few people can change the national outcome by adding, changing, or suppressing a small number of votes in one closely divided battleground state. The sheer magnitude of the national popular vote number, compared to individual state vote totals, is much more robust against manipulation.
National Popular Vote would limit the benefits to be gained by fraud or voter suppression. One suppressed vote would be one less vote. One fraudulent vote would only win one vote in the return. In the current electoral system, one fraudulent vote could mean 55 electoral votes, or just enough electoral votes to win the presidency without having the most popular votes in the country.
The closest popular-vote election in American history (in 1960), had a nationwide margin of more than 100,000 popular votes. The closest electoral-vote election in American history (in 2000) was determined by 537 votes, all in one state, when there was a lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide.
For a national popular vote election to be as easy to switch as 2000, it would have to be 200 times closer than the 1960 election--and, in popular-vote terms, , 40 times closer than 2000 itself.
Which system offers vote suppressors or fraudulent voters a better shot at success for a smaller effort?
Given that there is a recount only once in about 160 statewide elections, and given there is a presidential election once every four years, one would expect a recount about once in 640 years with the National Popular Vote. The actual probability of a close national election would be even less than that because recounts are less likely with larger pools of votes.
The average change in the margin of victory as a result of a statewide recount was a mere 296 votes in a 10-year study of 2,884 elections.
No recount would have been warranted in any of the nation’s 57 previous presidential elections if the outcome had been based on the nationwide count.
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. With both the current system and the National Popular Vote, all counting, recounting, and judicial proceedings must be conducted so as to reach a "final determination" prior to 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.
The 2000 presidential election was an artificial crisis created because of Bush's lead of 537 popular votes in Florida. Gore's nationwide lead was 537,179 popular votes (1,000 times larger). Given the miniscule number of votes that are changed by a typical statewide recount (averaging only 274 votes); no one would have requested a recount or disputed the results in 2000 if the national popular vote had controlled the outcome. Indeed, no one (except perhaps almanac writers and trivia buffs) would have cared that one of the candidates happened to have a 537-vote margin in Florida.
Recounts are far more likely in the current system of state-by-state winner-take-all methods.
The possibility of recounts should not even be a consideration in debating the merits of a national popular vote. No one has ever suggested that the possibility of a recount constitutes a valid reason why state governors or U.S. Senators, for example, should not be elected by a popular vote.
The question of recounts comes to mind in connection with presidential elections only because the current system so frequently creates artificial crises and unnecessary disputes.
We do and would vote state by state. Each state manages its own election and is prepared to conduct a recount.
The state-by-state winner-take-all system is not a firewall, but instead causes unnecessary fires.
The precariousness of the current state-by-state winner-take-all system of awarding electoral votes is highlighted by the fact that a shift of a few thousand voters in one or two states would have elected the second-place candidate in 4 of the 13 presidential elections since World War II. Near misses are now frequently common. There have been 7 consecutive non-landslide presidential elections (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012). 537 popular votes won Florida and the White House for Bush in 2000 despite Gore's lead of 537,179 (1,000 times more) popular votes nationwide. A shift of 60,000 voters in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of over 3 million votes.
An analysis of the whole number proportional plan and congressional district systems of awarding electoral votes, evaluated the systems "on the basis of whether they promote majority rule, make elections more nationally competitive, reduce incentives for partisan machinations, and make all votes count equally. . . .
Awarding electoral votes by a proportional or congressional district [used by Maine and Nebraska] method fails to promote majority rule, greater competitiveness or voter equality. Pursued at a state level, both reforms dramatically increase incentives for partisan machinations. If done nationally, the congressional district system has a sharp partisan tilt toward the Republican Party, while the whole number proportional system sharply increases the odds of no candidate getting the majority of electoral votes needed, leading to the selection of the president by the U.S. House of Representatives.
For states seeking to exercise their responsibility under the U.S. Constitution to choose a method of allocating electoral votes that best serves their state’s interest and that of the national interest, both alternatives fall far short of the National Popular Vote plan . . ."
FairVote
A survey of Minnesota voters showed 75% overall support for a national popular vote for President.
Support was 84% among Democrats, 69% among Republicans, and 68% among others.
By age, support was 74% among 18-29 year olds, 73% among 30-45 year olds, 77% among 46-65 year olds, and 75% for those older than 65.
By gender, support was 83% among women and 67% among men.
The National Popular Vote bill would change current state winner-take-all laws that award all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who get the most popular votes in each separate state (not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but since enacted by 48 states), to a system guaranteeing the majority of Electoral College votes for, and the Presidency to, the candidate getting the most popular votes in the entire United States.
The bill preserves the constitutionally mandated Electoral College and state control of elections. It ensures that every vote is equal, every voter will matter, in every state, in every presidential election, and the candidate with the most votes wins, as in virtually every other election in the country.
Under National Popular Vote, every vote, everywhere, would be politically relevant and equal in every presidential election. Every vote would be included in the state counts and national count. The candidate with the most popular votes in the country would get the 270+ electoral votes from the enacting states. That majority of electoral votes guarantees the candidate wins.
Some of these things belong in the "plus" column for the electoral college, but overall I don't think they even begin to outweigh the "minus" of effectively granting voters in Ohio and Florida exclusive control over the presidency.
Mr. Amara, in 1824, JQ Adams came in 2d place in the electoral college. Since no candidate had a majority of the electoral votes, the House of Representatives elected the President.
Excellent points raised in this article. What's more, I love these people in big states complaining their votes don't count. Because your state has a partisan leaning you think the government doesn't count your votes, huh? Or because a New Yorker didn't have to sit through as many awesome political ads as an Ohioan, their vote was dumped in the garbage? The real problem with the anti-electoral college crowd is that they're just obsessed with complaining about a perfectly good system, so much so they say things which are obviously ignorant, even to them if they'd stop and actually listen to themselves. There is no serious argument for abolishing the electoral college, just a few bombastic claims using only abstract terminology, which is why it won't be going anywhere in our lifetimes.
Of all these comments I'm shocked that ranked choice voting has not come into comparison with the Electoral College and the Popular Vote schemes. Ranked choice is the cleanest way to avoid two party politics and give the majority of Americans their preferred candidate.
Good analysis Abou.!!!
Solid analysis, Abou.
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