Electoral College

[Flagg the Wanderer]

mgoblue wrote something about the electoral college being outdated.

Do others agree? Why or why not?

Before the discussion, it's interesting to note that BEFORE the 2000 election, most predictions were that it was very possible that Gore would win the electoral college, but Bush would win the popular vote. At that time, there were a number of Republicans that were kvetching about the EC and why it was still around. People for some reason flip-flopped after the election.

Anyway, this is something that fascinates me, and I'm interested to see if many people feel the same way as mgoblue.

[bideau]

For anyone who's looking for info on the history and theory behind this system, here's a great site.

The Electoral College (http://www.fec.gov/pages/ecmenu2.htm)

There's a link to a PDF file (ADOBE) with a very interesting history of the college and how its changed over the years.

[mgoblue101415]

Just to clarify why I believe it is outdated....


I completely understand the creation of it. How do you elect a president from candidates that the large majority of the country know nothing about. So, yes, at one point there was a need for it.

But, especially now, with national papers, and 24-7 news stations, I believe the public is pretty informed of the candidates. And sure, you're going to have people vote for their party's candidate no matter what, but that isn't always the case.

Had McCain won the Republican nomination in 2000 I really would have considered voting Republican. Also, I know a few of my Republican friends who voted for Gore. So it isn't just a strict "I'm a Democrat therefore I'm voting for the Democratic candidate." or vice-versa.

I also think doing away with the Electoral College would help bring more people out to vote. How many people say they don't bother voting because their vote isn't going to change anything? Let their vote ACTUALLY count and I gurantee the number of voters rises. Let the people's vote be the only vote that matters.


Anyway, those are my thoughts on it. :shrug:

[spiderman]

The only reason I'm hesitant to abolish the electoral college is the creation of factions.

Without the electoral college candidates will basically appeal to voters in the NYC area and LA, meanwhile the Iowa farmer is left out in the cold. I believe in a system that places emphasis on representing all of America's interests. I would hate to see the entire county at the mercy of a couple of geographical areas just because they have huge populations.

[mgoblue101415]

Originally posted by spiderman
The only reason I'm hesitant to abolish the electoral college is the creation of factions.

Without the electoral college candidates will basically appeal to voters in the NYC area and LA, meanwhile the Iowa farmer is left out in the cold. I believe in a system that places emphasis on representing all of America's interests. I would hate to see the entire county at the mercy of a couple of geographical areas just because they have huge populations.

The way it's set up now the same thing occurs. California or Texas have more electoral votes than Iowa or Montana so the "little" states' vote don't count for as much. Do away with the electoral college and at least people are free to vote for who they want and not have it be left up to their electors.

[thomas144]

Originally posted by mgoblue101415
The way it's set up now the same thing occurs. California or Texas have more electoral votes than Iowa or Montana so the "little" states' vote don't count for as much. Do away with the electoral college and at least people are free to vote for who they want and not have it be left up to their electors.

Actually, the exact opposite is the case: because of the electoral college, a voter in South Dakota has much more power in the national election than a voter in a big state.

I don't really mind the electoral college in principle. It's not going away anyway. If we are going to argue about changes that aren't going to happen anytime soon, I would prefer to talk about dissolving the union.

[townes]

I only have a second before I have to take off again, but I agree that it's an interesting question. Basically I'm against changing the system, even though it would move politics well left imo. The reason I oppose it is because it would allow candidates to ignore rural areas, the reason it would move the country to the left is because cities would weigh more heavily, and that gives the left more weight.

A straight up popular vote would definitely help the democrats imo.

[bideau]

Originally posted by mgoblue101415
The way it's set up now the same thing occurs. California or Texas have more electoral votes than Iowa or Montana so the "little" states' vote don't count for as much. Do away with the electoral college and at least people are free to vote for who they want and not have it be left up to their electors.

Here's an example from the article I linked above where this is not true:

First, the distribution of Electoral votes in the college tends to over-represent people in rural states. This is because the number of Electors for each state is determined by the number of members is has in the House (which more or less reflects the state's population size) plus the number it has in the Senate (which is always two regardless of the state's population). The result is that in 1988, for example, the combined voting age population (3,119,000) of the seven least populous jurisdictions of Alaska, Delaware, 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. Each Floridian's potential vote, then, carried about one-third the weight of a potential vote in the other states listed.

If the system is changed to a popular vote, nothing will change in regards to how campaigns are run. Candidates will still concentrate their resources in the highly populated regions since they'll always get more bang for the buck.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by mgoblue101415
The way it's set up now the same thing occurs. California or Texas have more electoral votes than Iowa or Montana so the "little" states' vote don't count for as much. Do away with the electoral college and at least people are free to vote for who they want and not have it be left up to their electors.

We seem to always be on the opposite sides on this board :D

The only problem with what you are saying is that margin of victory is certain areas will sway elections. Without the electoral college theoretically Kerry could win the popular vote in every state by one by 1 vote, but then lose the election if the margin of victory by Bush in say California is 51 votes.

Do you see what I'm saying? It would be worth your while to try and win NYC and LA by a landslide. This way politicians will only campaign in heavily populated areas. Ultimately The problem with that is that people in NYC have completely different wants and desires then people in Oklahoma.

Under the current system it doesn't matter if a candidate won a certain state by a landslide or a close race, it's still only worth X amount of votes.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by bideau
If the system is changed to a popular vote, nothing will change in regards to how campaigns are run. Candidates will still concentrate their resources in the highly populated regions since they'll always get more bang for the buck.

I still think it would create a new dynamic to elections. Currently it doesn't matter if you win California 5 million to 4 million or 8 million to 1 million, you still only pick up 55 votes. Without the electoral college this would be a huge difference, thus motivating a candidate to spend more time in the state in order to pick up a few more percentage points.

If a percentage point in California is worth 100,000 votes as opposed to Iowa where it is only worth 1,000 votes, where would you spend most of your time?

[Mark_Henderson]

Originally posted by spiderman
I still think it would create a new dynamic to elections. Currently it doesn't matter if you win California 5 million to 4 million or 8 million to 1 million, you still only pick up 55 votes. Without the electoral college this would be a huge difference, thus motivating a candidate to spend more time in the state in order to pick up a few more percentage points.

If a percentage point in California is worth 100,000 votes as opposed to Iowa where it is only worth 1,000 votes, where would you spend most of your time?

The electoral college made sense for the realities of the 18th/19th century, but I don't see how you can say it isn't an anachronism now.

Spiderman makes one of the best points, I think. Although the democrats will surely win California, the margin could fluctuate by hundreds of thousands of votes and that is ignored.

There's no reason that a Republican in Mass. shouldn't be one of the votes that has the chance to push Bush over the top, or the reverse for a Democrat in Texas. Anything that brings us closer to one man/one vote makes us more democratic.

[Mark_Henderson]

[i]Originally posted by bideau
If the system is changed to a popular vote, nothing will change in regards to how campaigns are run. Candidates will still concentrate their resources in the highly populated regions since they'll always get more bang for the buck. [/B]

I'm repeating what I just said, but campaigns would change because they'd campaign in a populous state like New York fighting for the margin of difference, which they currently don't.

A dynamic like Kerry selecting Edwards would take on added meaning because although he might not win any southern states, he may narrow the margin there. This would improve the system because both candidates would have incentive to address ALL regions of the country. There would be less red state/blue state cultural war polarization.

[spiderman]

Originally posted by Mark_Henderson
The electoral college made sense for the realities of the 18th/19th century, but I don't see how you can say it isn't an anachronism now.

Spiderman makes one of the best points, I think. Although the democrats will surely win California, the margin could fluctuate by hundreds of thousands of votes and that is ignored.

There's no reason that a Republican in Mass. shouldn't be one of the votes that has the chance to push Bush over the top, or the reverse for a Democrat in Texas. Anything that brings us closer to one man/one vote makes us more democratic.

I understand why you and others feel that the electoral college is outdated because voters are better informed then they were 200 years ago. I agree with you on this point.

However, what I am saying is that by going to a one man/one vote system, you run the risk of not representing the entire country. You have to realize that despite being one country we are still 50 very different individual states. What is important to someone in Mississippi may not be as important to someone in Massachusetts. Imagine how angry and disenfranchised individuals in the heartland will be if all elections are basically decided by Californians?

Imagine a scenario where a candidate comes up with a new policy that is very beneficial to the state of California thus taking 90% of the vote, all the while completely ignoring the issues in the midwest and thus only receiving 30% of the vote in each of 4 different states? He/she theoretically (i haven't actually done the math) would win the election without really representing all 50 states.

[Flagg the Wanderer]

Anachronistic? We need the Electoral College now more than ever.

One man one vote makes us more democratic? Quite the contrary.

Look, in 2002 and 2003 the World series was won by a team that scored fewer runs than its opponent. Is that unfair?

More to the point, in 1960 there was a nailbiter Presidential Election, and the electoral college was called into question. That same year, the Yankees lost to the Pirates in 7 games, though they outscored them 55 to 27. The Yankees won three blowouts (16-3, 10-0, 12-0), but they couldn’t come up with the runs they needed in the other four games, which were close. In sports, we accept that a true champion should be more consistent than the 1960 Yankees. A champion should be able to win at least some of the tough, close contests by every means available--bunting, stealing, brilliant pitching, dazzling plays in the field--and not just smack home runs against second-best pitchers. A presidential candidate worthy of office, by the same logic, should have broad appeal across the whole nation, and not just play strongly on one or two issues to isolated blocs of voters.

http://images.usatoday.com/news/electmap.jpg

James Madison, chief architect of our nation’s electoral college, wanted to protect each citizen against the most insidious tyranny that arises in democracies: the massed power of fellow citizens banded together in a dominant bloc. As Madison explained in The Federalist Papers (Number X), "a well-constructed Union" must, above all else, "break and control the violence of faction," especially "the superior force of an . . . overbearing majority." In any democracy, a majority’s power threatens minorities. It threatens their rights, their property, and sometimes their lives.

A well-designed electoral system might include obstacles to thwart an overbearing majority. But direct, national voting has none. Under raw voting, a candidate has every incentive to woo only the largest bloc-- say, Serbs in Yugoslavia. If a Serb party wins national power, minorities have no prospect of throwing them out; 49 percent will never beat 51 percent. Knowing this, the majority can do as it pleases (lacking other effective checks and balances). But in a districted election, no one becomes president without winning a large number of districts, or "states"- -say, two of the following three: Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia. Candidates thus have an incentive to campaign for non-Serb votes in at least some of those states and to tone down extreme positions--in short, to make elections less risky events for the losers.

This is the thing:

Equality, in terms of how much each vote counts, is undeniably important. It isn’t the only thing, though. In a tyranny, for instance, everyone’s vote is equal – it’s worth nothing. The other thing in voting is to ensure that each voter has the greatest possible voting power. Your voting power is determined by 2 factors: 1) the number of people voting; and 2) the closeness of the election.

The electoral college is designed to increase your voting power by fiddling with #1, and has a more or less random effect on #2. Overall, your voting power is increased in a base case.

Lets say, for example, that you have a 1 in 51 chance of living in any given electoral territory. While you may be a Republican in Massachusetts or a Democrat in Texas, you might also be either one in Pennslyvania, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, etc.

Here’s the thing, though: a small change in the size of the electorate doesn’t effect the power of your vote nearly as much as a small change in the closeness of the election.

In a dead-even contest, voting power shrinks as the electorate becomes larger. But a 1 or 2 percent change in electorate size, by itself, doesn’t matter much to the individual voter. When one candidate gains an edge over another, however, a 1 or 2 percent change can make a huge difference to everyone’s voting power, giving candidates less of a motive to keep the losers happy. And the larger the electorate, the more telling a candidate’s lead becomes.

So to increase voting power, you keep the elections as small as possible. If a national poll reveals that Candidate A has a 3% lead over Candidate B, you have a much better chance at influencing the election by keeping the election small, for the same reason if you’re playing to win in Vegas, you keep your session short. The law of large numbers dictates that the larger an electorate, the more pronounced a lead is, and the less ability anyone has to turn the election.

There is a lot of fun (but really very simple) math to back this up here, (http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm) from which I’ve unabashedly stolen all of this lovely summary. But the essence of it is this:

A districted voting scheme can either decrease individual voting power or boost it, depending on how lopsided the broad support is. The crossover point is the key. For a nation of 135, that point is right around a 55-45 percent split in voter preference between two candidates. In any contest closer than this, voters would have more power in a simple, direct election. In any contest more lopsided than this, they would be better off voting by districts.

For very small electorates--nine people, say-- the gap between candidates must be very large, at least 66.6 to 33.3 percent, before districting will help. That’s why raw voting works well at town meetings, where electorates are so small. As the number of voters gets larger, the crossover point moves closer to 50-50. For a nation of 135, voters are better off with districting in any race more lopsided than 55- 45. For a nation with millions of voters, the gap between candidates must be razor-thin for districting not to help. In the real world of large nations and uneven contests, voters get more bang for their ballot when they set up a districted, Madisonian electoral system--usually a lot more.

To turn back to the 1960 World Series for an example: under simpler rules, the Yankees might have been champions. They might have won, for instance, if there were no World Series but only the scheduled 154-game season, with one large baseball nation of 16 teams instead of two separate leagues. The team winning the most games all year long would simply pick up its prize in October.

Instead, here is what happened. By the ninth inning in game seven of the series, the Yankees and Pirates had fought to a standstill--the ultimate deadlock. Each team had won three games. The Yankees had led throughout much of game seven, but Pittsburgh astonished everyone by scoring five runs in the eighth inning, after a Yankee fielding error, to go ahead 9-7. They couldn’t, of course, hold their lead. The Yankees answered with two more runs in the top of the ninth to tie the score at 9-9. Then, in the bottom of the ninth, Bill Mazeroski, an average hitter without much power, stepped to the plate for Pittsburgh. He seemed a mere placeholder--until his long fly ball just cleared the left-field wall.

If the champion was determined by the whole season’s win total, or to the greater extreme, the whole season’s run differential, Mazeroski would have had zero chance to make a difference. Because the baseball season is districted, and forces teams to be successful in a broader sense, we had a case of one vote, if you will, turning the election. Without the “districting” it could never have happened.

I think the electoral college system is incredibly valuable, and forces politicians to extend their appeal, and address issues that are of greater importance to a broader scope of voters. Additionally, it increases voter power in most cases. Furthermore, it functions to stave off the tyranny of the majority. Finally (and this shouldn’t matter, but it does), it makes elections more exciting. Why does that matter? Because exciting elections increase voter turnout. Voter turnout definitely makes us more democratic.

[mgoblue101415]

This is obviously an opinion that leans toward the left, but still some very good points.


Abolish the Electoral College (http://www.politicalstrategy.org/policy/electoralcollege.htm)

[Flagg the Wanderer]

Originally posted by mgoblue101415
This is obviously an opinion that leans toward the left, but still some very good points.


Abolish the Electoral College (http://www.politicalstrategy.org/policy/electoralcollege.htm)
Actually, I think that article was incredibly simplistic, and the author made himself look a little silly when he called Samples a "Bozo" for stating that each state had 2 electors regardless of size. The Bozo was correct. Each state gets two regardless of size, and then gets additional electors BASED on size. His interpretation was nonsensical - for his interpretation of that statement to be right, Samples would have been having to claim that there are 102 electors in the U.S.

The problem is that this article has a problem with the percieved inequity of the system as it currently stands, whereas the article I cited talks of the merits of they system as a system. And even in that, it's wrong. A voter in Wyoming doesn't have nearly the power of a voter in Florida or Pennsylvania or Ohio - because Wyoming is going to go Republican, and it isn't going to be close. It isn't just the size of the electorate, it's the closeness of the election that determines the power each voter has. How much voting power would you have in a state that supported Kerry at a rate of 95%, even if it had only 20 people? almost none - the election in that state is a foregone conclusion. But by Ball's logic, you'd have a huge amount of clout. That's wrong.

Overall, the electoral college increases the power of an individual voter - period. It increases the "level of democracy" and forces politicians to engage people all over the country - in states that are in dispute, not just the most heavily populated states.

[townes]

Flagg's right imo, and current politics shouldn't be the basis for overhauling the election system. The true beauty of the american system is it's ability to protect the individual against abuses by the state or the majority, and the electoral college is an important part of that.

The difficult process of amending the Constitution, the electoral college, and separation of church and state are all important checks in protecting the rights of the individual, and gross overactions, like the Patriot Act and knee jerk amendments to the Constitution are the water that erodes those checks, and ultimately our rights.

[Mark_Henderson]

Flagg's essay was a good civics lesson. There's enough wisdom there that I'd tone down my stand, though the color coded map doesn't really sway me, since it's voters that are relevant, not the number of sparsely populated counties that you carry. For example, Gore won Illinois by a wide margin, but looking at that map, some kind of county winner takes all apportionment might have given it to Bush. Also, dividing the elecotrate into single state, winner take all units puts a Mayor Daley or a Jeb Bush in a position to wield a disproportionate amount of power if they can manipulate the outcome in their state by even a fraction of a percent.