As the election gets near...

[IJ]

It would be absurd to change the rules AFTER an election. Gore's gripe wasn't that he won the popular vote, but that the razor thin margin in Florida required a recount especially with opponents in charge of the state government and confusing ballots.

I used to like the electoral college, and the idea is people can band together in blocks and get more attention by increasing their voting power. I read a mathematical analysis that said there was a better chance one vote would change the election with the college than with a popular vote. If that's supposed to make you feel like you'd be Kevin Costner and holding the election in your hand, well, you're better off playing the lottery either way.

My current gripe with it is that it focuses attention on a few swing states and makes for policy favors for small parts of the population that might not be in the national interest. Oh, is industry X key in a swing state? Well let's cut them some slack, we have to win elections afterall. That's just pork barreling--and the views in solidly red or blue states get ignored until the polls get close there, as Obama forced, in say, NC or VA. Meanwhile, I really cannot vote for president in CA. It's going for Obama, whatever I do. My vote will not count. That may mean that more dems stay home on election day than republicans, and THAT may mean that Prop 8 (banning same sex marriage) passes. I'm already po'd enough about how that is funded largely by the Moron--sorry, MorMON church, which might find better things to do with its time and money, such as repressive policies in it's home state of Utah.

A similar thing happens in the primaries. Why should a few small states have disproportionate claim to the candidates than others? What makes their vote more important? It's annoying enough that RI elects two senators, the same as the most populous states.

I would favor decision by popular vote and a ban on tallies until all polling has closed. I would also assign senate seats by population, but keep the longer terms as their function is to insulate senators from the passions of the moment.

[Glenn]

Glenn, if I remember correctly Bush did not win in 2000. Wasn't he our first congressional appointed president? Correct me if I am wrong.

It was more complex then that. What follows is abstracted from wikipedia. The race in Florida was close enough to trigger an automatic recount in that state. Gore asked that certain counties recounts be done by hand, as allowed by Florida state law. What followed was a series of recounts, challenges, and lawsuits that ultimately put the matter before the U.S. Supreme Court. In December the court ruled that the method Florida had decided to use to recount was unconstitutional, and voted to end all Florida recounts. Florida was then able to certify the original election results that had Bush winning the state's electoral votes, and thus the national election. In January a joint session of Congress met to certify the results, as it is required to do by the Constitution. Some members of the House filed objections over the Florida issue. But by law any such objection has to be co-sponsored by both a representative and a senator, and no senator would co-sponsor the objections, instead deferring to the Supreme Court rulings. As President of the Senate, Gore himself had to rule each of the representatives objections out of order since there was no senate co-sponsorship. So Bush was not truly a congressionally appointed president, but rather Congress was one more step that ended up simply certifying what had already been decided by the process preceding it.

It is true that Gore received more of the popular vote, but electing a president by popular vote would be, in a word, unconstitutional. IMO, there's no basis for making any ado about popular vote, given that most people understand that the electoral college is in place and may choose not to vote if they live in a stronghold state for one candidate or the other. To change the rules and make it go by popular vote after the election would be like reaching the end of a football game and declaring that this time we weren't going to decide the winner by the scoreboard, rather by who gained the most yards.

Complaints about the electoral vs popular vote process have not been about changing the rules after the fact to change the results of a completed election, but rather questioning the whole electoral college process that can negate the popular vote. This has happened after each of the three times the winner of the electoral vote (and thus the presidency) did so in spite of losing the popular vote (1876, 1888, and 2000). If as you say it encourages people in one candidate's stronghold states to not vote, i.e., discourages them from voting, that is an argument against the electoral college system. However there are many arguments for and against the electoral college process, it is a complex issue that rests on more than just the winners of the popular vote in three elections having lost the elections.Claims against the Electoral College and Claims in favor of the Electoral Collegeseem to provide a pretty good summary of the pros and cons of the electoral college system. The complexity of this issue is a major reason why there was never any significant or lasting momentum to change the process after any of those three elections.

[Glenn]

I would also assign senate seats by population, but keep the longer terms as their function is to insulate senators from the passions of the moment.

Then the Senate would duplicate the House. The Constitution sets out the current dual Congress as a compromise: One half based on population and one half based on equal representation by all states. To understand the reasoning beind this, you have to look at what preceded the Constitution (the Articles of Confederation) and the process of getting the new Constitution approved by the people. The Articles of Confederation established a federal government similar to how the United Nations is set up today, with each state sending an equal number of representatives to the Congress, the federal government having little authority to dictate much to the states, and the federal government not having the ability to levy taxes, among other restrictions. Thus power was concentrated at the state level while the federal government was fairly weak. Leaders realized that such a weak federal government was not conducive to the longevity of the country, and thus the decision was made to hold a convention to look at modifying the Articles. What the convention did instead was to totally scrap the Articles and draw up a new form of government. The result was the Constitution. The conventioners realized that there would be some objections to changing the balance of power between state and federal governments (there were objections among some of the conventioners themselves), so they included various compromises, including the dual Congress.

Interestingly, one of the goals of many conventioners was to establish an electoral system that would hopefully negate the formation of political parties, and many of the then innovative aspects of geographical representation laid out in the constitution were designed just for that purpose. One of the causes of the revolution was that the political party system of Britain did not allow much representation for the colonists, and so political parties were not held in much favor within the early U.S. As we can see, the conventioners failed at this goal, and rather quickly in fact as political parties formed from the start.

[mhosea]

Complaints about the electoral vs popular vote process have not been about changing the rules after the fact to change the results of a completed election, but rather questioning the whole electoral college process that can negate the popular vote.

Why else would people keep bringing it up? Because their favorite candidate lost in the electoral college and won the popular vote, of course, and it made them mad. Gore should have won that election! Right? The very complaint implies the fundamental misunderstanding. Sure, they don't expect the past to change, but they don't want that to happen again, and they imagine that if the system had been based on popular vote that the outcome would have been different. That is a flawed argument. Sure, you and I can have a cerebral discussion about the properties of the two systems, but I can think of no rational way to get upset about an inversion of the electoral college and popular vote in any past election without also introducing a self-serving oversimplification to make it possible. You can't actually prove that, say, Gore's loss would have been a win if the election had been based on popular vote. It's effectively impossible to prove that the electoral college has ever negated the popular vote for the simple reason that strategies of both candidates and voters were based on the electoral college. The only way you can even make the argument that the electoral college has ever negated the popular vote is to entertain the thought experiment that the election was carried out exactly as it was, i.e., with candidates and many voters understanding that the electoral college would determine the outcome, and then change to popular vote after the fact. It's the hypothetical circumstance that the claim of "negating the popular vote" in any particular instance implies.

[Glenn]

Mike, Yes and no.

On the one hand you are definitely correct that the results of the popular vote may be different without an electoral college process because the parties' and voters' strategies might be different. Without the electoral college more people might come out to vote (although voter turnout for other elections indicates that would not necessarily be the case, presidential elections already tend to have the highest level of voter turnout). Bush may have won the popular vote in 2000 if the election had not been based on the electoral vote, it's impossible to say with any certainty. For that matter, in other close elections the voting may have resulted in a different winner if the voting process was different. You could also look at what the effects might be if most states did not have a winner-takes-all method of allocating electoral college votes, or the effect of third-party candidates on elections without the electoral college, and a whole host of other 'what-ifs'. So as you point out there is a certain logical fallacy to the gut reaction of saying that in these specific three elections the losers would automatically have won if the election had been based on the popular vote instead of the electoral vote, and we have to keep this in context.

But equally in context is the underlying reality that with the presidential voting process that is in place the fact still remains that regardless of any party or voter strategies, regardless of anything leading up to the election and the people getting out to vote, once all the votes are cast and all the levers are pulled (holes punched, bubbles filled in, etc), the possibility exists for a candidate to win the popular vote and still lose the election. And it is a very real possibility, since it has happened three times in U.S. history. This is a very relevant and important issue, but as the links I provided above show, not the only issue.

Both of these contexts factor into any discussion of the pros and cons of the electoral college system.

[Glenn]

It's effectively impossible to prove that the electoral college has ever negated the popular vote

It is impossible to prove that the electoral college has ever negated the popular support for a given candidate, but the fact that the electoral college has negated the actual popular vote is very real...the numbers don't lie in these cases.

[Bill Glasheen]

Our electoral college system - and Congress as well - was set up to prevent tyranny of the masses.

You don't vote for your candidate for president. You NEVER did. Your district votes for an electoral college representative. They in turn generally vote for the party they ran under. They DO NOT negate the popular vote; they (the electoral college reps) vote for the party they ran under when and if they get elected by the general population. The nonlinear relationship between the individual and the electoral college tally prevents a massive support on one region of the country overwhelming lukewarm support in another.

Engineers never have problems with such structures. They act as low pass filters to swings in opinion. They also prevent the urban from ruling the rural, and vice versa.

- Bill

[mhosea]

It is impossible to prove that the electoral college has ever negated the popular support for a given candidate, but the fact that the electoral college has negated the actual popular vote is very real...the numbers don't lie in these cases.

Of course you are correct, as far as that goes. However, people don't really want to draw the distinction you are making when they get upset about the electoral college. Quite the opposite--what they want to do is argue that the election was determined by some other method in spite of public support, and they point to the popular vote tally to "prove" it. I'm just saying that that is not a valid argument, or at least that the popular vote tally is a dubious measure of public support given that the electoral college was understood to be the method of determination when the vote was collected.

[Glenn]

Well if they really want to look at methods determining elections, they need to look at Gerrymandering, not the electoral vote process. Where the boundaries for voting districts were drawn has had considerable effect on elections at all levels. At the presidential level the effect is more indirect because there are only 5 electoral college districts (2 in Maine and 3 in Nebraska) for Gerrymandering to directly act upon, but I would say Gerrymandering still has more effect than the electoral process itself. While technically illegal, Gerrymandering is getting easier to do and harder to prove, largely due to the capabilities of Geographic Information Systems.

Your district votes for an electoral college representative. They in turn generally vote for the party they ran under. They DO NOT negate the popular vote; they (the electoral college reps) vote for the party they ran under when and if they get elected by the general population.

Technically there are no districts specifically for the electoral college anymore. There use to be when the electoral college was first established and they voted independently of each other, but most states switched to the winner-takes-all method by the middle of the 1800s and eliminated electoral college districts. Not coincidentally, this trend occurred before the the first case of a candidate winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote in 1876. It's the state-level winner-takes-all method that actually allows for this situation. Now 48 states and DC use that method. The only way to truly not negate the popular voting results with the electoral college system is to have true electoral districts that vote independently of each other.

Nebraska and Maine are currently the only states where some of the electoral votes are based on districts, in this case House districts rather than true electoral college districts, and can vote independently of each other. So 3 out of 5 electoral votes in Nebraska and 2 out of 4 electoral votes in Maine are based independently on how people in those 5 House districts voted. Nebraska is traditionally predominately Republican so all electoral votes generally go to the Republican candidate, but with the independent districts the Dems have a shot at the one containing Omaha, and Obama supporters are doing a major push to try to capture that one vote while ignoring the rest of the state. This is closer to having a situation where at least some of the electoral vote do not negate the popular voting results (although note that the remaining 2 electoral votes for each of these two states goes to whoever won the overall state vote), but others have argued that because so few states do this it can also decrease Nebraska's already small effect in the presidential election.

[Bill Glasheen]

I should have used "state" rather than "district." But the net effect is the same, Glenn. It's just the degree of granularity allowed when representing the various population groups. There is the state level winner-takes-all, and the district level winner-takes-all. Same thing, on two different levels of granularity.

I'd hate to think that Virginia would be split up, given the breadth of populations represented. We have northern Virginia where the most per capita PhDs can be found. Then there is the military and port cities in southeast Virginia, the state capital people, the various university communities, rural Virginians, coal mining areas, mountain communities, etc.

- Bill

[Glenn]

I should have used "state" rather than "district." But the net effect is the same, Glenn. It's just the degree of granularity allowed when representing the various population groups. There is the state level winner-takes-all, and the district level winner-takes-all. Same thing, on two different levels of granularity.

The potential for the existence of scale-dependent results is pretty good with this though. Different levels of granularity do not readily translate to the different levels producing identical results in social systems, particularly when the different levels are based on arbitrary areal units (i.e., the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem). The net effect result of winner-takes-all per district can be different from the result of winner-takes-all per state, and both can be different from the winner being based on popular vote. That is not to say that one scale is necessarily better or worse then the others, just that results will not necessarily be the same between them.

I'd hate to think that Virginia would be split up, given the breadth of populations represented. We have northern Virginia where the most per capita PhDs can be found. Then there is the military and port cities in southeast Virginia, the state capital people, the various university communities, rural Virginians, coal mining areas, mountain communities, etc.

But this begs the question of which provides more accurate or meaningful representation, in this case electoral-college representation, state-based or region-based? A certain previously north-western region of Virginia obviously decided region-based representation was preferable during the Civil War, creating a new state as a result. (And I am not sure Virginia has really missed this region, so it was probably a win-win situation!) The answer to that question will depend on who you ask and what specifically would be affected.

[Bill Glasheen]

The level of granularity obviously must serve the good of the whole. Otherwise it won't make sense. Some standardization and homogenization creates economies of scale.

- Bill

[Glenn]

Agreed, but this will always be subjectively determined.

A couple decades ago, Richard Morrill, a political geographer at the University of Washington (now emeritus), developed a population-based mapping program that could objectively define voting district boundaries with little likelihood of Gerrymandering (some Gerrymandering is always statistically possible, even when you don't try to create it). To my knowledge, no state has ever adopted this program, all of them choosing instead to make any districting a political process.

[IJ]

I am aware of the rationale for the Senate--hundreds of years ago when we needed to unify the country. Today, hundreds of years later, there is no reason why RI should have as much influence in the Senate as CA. Those residents are not more important, and the importance of the states has diminished. Of course, this is very unlikely to change, but that's also partly because the tiny states have undue influence.

Bill, I'm not sure WHY massive support in half the country shouldn't overwhelm lukewarm support elsewhere. You're saying that the electoral college prevents the urban from ruling the rural, and vice versa, but if you look at the red and blue maps, northeast/coastal is ruling south/central or vice versa, right there under that same electoral college. And if predominantly urban states exceed the electoral votes of predominantly rural areas, or vice versa, you can still have the situation you decry, just decided another way. Fact is the country is divided enough that you can't win the whole without appealing to all the major parts.

As for the issue of people getting upset about losing the election and winning the popular vote, yes, that popular vote occurred only because of voting patterns and campaigns conducted in an electoral college system. Ok... does that mean the majority shouldn't carry the election? Since people aren't hoping to change the result of the finished election, who cares how that broke down? They are just being reminded that someone could get:

100% support in states with 49% of the electoral vote
49.9% support in states with 51% of the electoral vote...

And lose. Does that make sense?

Honestly, the real issue here is that ONE person is not going to represent the whole country ideally. GWB just said it--he had to support the people who voted for him, and it was John Stewart who asked, wait aren't you the President of the WHOLE country, not just the people that voted for you? This also will never change, but I think we would be better off if we had a President in charge of social issues... another for Defense/Security, and a third for Finance. Or no triumvirate, just congress and senate.

The idea that one person is qualified to launch wars and direct our taxes/financial course and make decisions about stem cell research or abortion at the same time is nuts. Very few of us endorse all the plans the person we vote for will enact--but we're stuck with one wimp King.

[cxt]

IJ

Given the numeber of people that don't pay any kind of taxes....about 1/3 of the totol population...... instead of "no taxation without representation".......how about "no respresentation without taxation."

Why should those that don't contibute to the kitty get a say in how much of everyones elses money they get to have?

Like they say---"those who rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul's support."

Sure if you really can't work that is one thing....but if your able to contribute shouldn't you have to do so?

Why should I be allowed to decide what you do with your paycheck?
I didn't help you earn it......why should I, just because I can get a lot of my buddies to vote for it--get to live off your sweat and toil?

Hey, as long as your talking about 2 presidents---why not think of of a totol overhaul of the system?