Ryan Cooper makes a good argument against the Electoral College, but I’m not convinced. Do you want to know what the best argument is against a national popular vote?
It’s this guy:
Imagine that guy in every county in every state in the country trying to figure out who voted for whom so that we can decide the winner of the national popular election.
Can I just say, “No thanks”?
Can you imagine the nightmare that would create?
No, it’s much better to have our presidential election decided the way it is, although I can certainly envision more ideal systems.
For example, Wyoming simply doesn’t deserve three votes. That’s a massive rounding error. We ought to be able to use decimal points in allocating Electoral Votes so that each state is properly weighted.
Some of Cooper’s complaints sound pretty bad but don’t look so problematic when put in an historic context. How much time did Republicans spend campaigning in the Deep South between the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the beginning of the congressional debate over civil rights legislation that predated the 1964 election? It’s hardly unusual for one party to blow off half or more of the country when seeking Electoral College votes.
Another complaint is that Democrats in Texas and Republicans in California have little incentive to vote. That’s hyperbole, if you ask me. To illustrate my point, let’s go back to the 2000 Florida recount again for a moment.
When the debate was going on about who won in 2000 and how we should count the votes in Florida, one of the most important factors in that was that everyone agreed that Al Gore had won the popular vote. It gave him legitimacy. It gave him the room he needed to take the whole thing to court. Four years later in an election that was just as fishy, John Kerry had lost the popular vote and didn’t have the same perceived legitimate claim to the presidency as Al Gore had enjoyed. Kerry quickly conceded even though the Ohio vote had some serious anomalies that had not yet been explained.
So, at the time of the 2000 Florida recount, what was more important? Was a single vote for Al Gore in modestly contested Pennsylvania more important than a vote for Al Gore in never-gonna-win Texas?
I’d argue that they were pretty close to equally important. Neither vote was going to decide the election of its state or the nation by itself, but both contributed to creating the legitimacy of Al Gore’s position. And, since we’re talking about a perception here, a vote that added to Al Gore’s percentage was more significant for that reason than any single vote was for determining the outcome, since no states were decided by a single vote.
When you vote, thinking your vote alone will decide the election is a lot like thinking that you’re going to win the lottery. Yes, it is theoretically possible, but an election close enough to be decided by one vote will actually be decided by lawyers and Antonin Scalia, not by your decision to show up at the polls. We don’t vote because our vote decides the election, and if that’s why you’re voting, you’re doing it wrong.
To decide an election, you need to organize many votes and organize them in the correct places. That means getting to work, but it also means making choices. In our present system, it makes sense to commit resources in Nashua, New Hampshire but in a popular vote contest it would only make sense to commit resources in high population density areas where as many voters as possible could be influenced. No one campaigns in Los Angeles in the Electoral College system. No one would campaign in Dubuque in a popular vote system. Is one better than the other? Not in principle, which is my point. If you create a system, any system, it will change where people campaign but it won’t change that they will ignore areas that aren’t critical to their success. If you want the candidates spending most of their time and all their ad money in Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and New York City, then the popular vote system will do that for you, but it won’t be an obvious improvement. Do you really think the candidates will suddenly discover that Tennessee is a state under either system?
The last complaint that Cooper has is that it is possible at all to win the presidency while losing the overall vote. I have no problem with that scenario, however. It would only be a problem under popular vote rules, but the candidates aren’t playing by popular vote rules. The way I see it, this is like complaining that you lost a baseball game despite getting the most base hits. You can make that argument, but the team with more runs will point out that they weren’t even trying to get more base hits, and they would have tried if they had known that those were the rules.
If there’s a problem with a presidential candidate winning while getting fewer national votes, it’s a problem with how we’ve educated people to understand the way this country is put together. We call this place the “United States” for the simple reason that they were not, in fact, united at all. They were divided by sect, by climate, by culture, by slavery, and by what they wanted out of a federal union.
We remain divided. Perhaps today we are divided less by state than by regions within states, but go down to Houston and try to have a political conversation if you want to get a sense of the size of chasm that remains between us. The Electoral College isn’t perfect, but it acknowledges that a presidential election isn’t just about raw numbers. It’s about putting together majority coalitions that are regional and that cross regions.
So, the popular vote is bad for two reasons. First, and most importantly, if we have another tie, we’d never be able to resolve it. Second, your vote isn’t as important as the ability of our disparate states to express their political will, knowing that sometimes they will be overruled as the price of membership in this Union.
“No one campaigns in Los Angeles in the Electoral College system. No one would campaign in Dubuque in a popular vote system. Is one better than the other?”
Um, yes?
There are 13 million people in the greater LA area.
There are 100,000 in Dubuque.
In principle, isn’t it better to campaign at more Americans?
No.
It’s better if your interests are represented. And if you have a minority interest because, say, your local economy is unusual or your engaged in agriculture or because most people just aren’t like you, then it’s hard have your interests heard or protected.
You don’t want a system where politicians just flock to the biggest media markets.
We’re not talking about a local, or state-wide office. We’re talking about a nationwide office. You think it makes more sense for the president to represent the interests of Dubuque or, say, ethanol producers, than wider groups?
And you think that right now, people running for president hit all the small economies, and just don’t campaign in the biggest ones?
This strikes me as bizarre to the point of Slate-pitchiness. What’s wrong with a handful of billionaires picking nominees? There’s nothing in principle worse about that than a handful of states doing it, right? I mean if their personal fiefdom is unusual or most people just aren’t like them, then it’s hard have their interests heard or protected. I don’t see the problem.
The problem is, it’s anti-democratic.
You’ve got this completely wrong. The only way you’re likely to get an election that’s so close you need to judge hanging chads is if a comparatively small subset of the electorate will be dispositive, i.e. with the electoral college. The national electorate is much too large for there to be a realistic probability of that happening. Also, too, punch card voting is pretty much a thing of the past. So I think you’re just mathematically wrong.
Any election can be tied, although it’s true that the fewer elections you have the lower the likelihood that it will happen.
On the other hand, consider the difficulty of resolving a tied national election where votes from furthest Alaska are as potentially as important to the outcome as absentees from Afghanistan.
It’s not just the smaller number of elections — it’s also the size of the electorate. This is a technical fact about probabilities. It’s just extremely improbable that an election with 115 million votes cast will be so close as to be unresolvable. A difference of just 1/100th of 1 percent will be more than 115,000 votes. The absentees from Afghanistan won’t matter. And if something that will happen less than once in a million elections does happen, I don’t see why it will be inherently harder to settle than the Florida election.
Yes, now who have traceless, easily hacked electronic voting, making it more likely than ever that whatever I decide, my vote here in Cook County will be Democratic.
That’s beside the point — the question is the likelihood of a tie, not the possibility of fraud.
The mathematical chance of an election being tied where there are close to 100 million votes is so small as to be insignificant. Even the 538 member electoral college has yet to produce a tie under the present system, although the chances of a tie are not insignificant with such a much smaller number.
The problem with the electoral college system is that the election is really decided in a small number of swing states which consequently get all the attention, and the needs of all other states can be completely ignored. The US is also unique in often declaring a winner before the voting has closed in some states – rendering voting in western states generally a redundant exercise.
Just as Iowa and New Hampshire often decide the primaries, the general election can be decided by a few key population centers in a few states. Yes a popular vote system would still lead to candidates focusing on the major media markets, but at least it would be major media markets all over the country, and not just in a few sates.
I can see why Pennsylvania, often still a swing state would want to retain the current system, but there is no incentive for Democrats to even bother to organize and run serious campaigns in clearly red states and vice versa, leading to a further polarization of the country.
Here’s a news flash, Frank.
Most of the elections on the ballot on election day are not the presidential election.
Also, in 1800, we had a tie in the Electoral College. In 1876, we had a virtual tie. Basically, it was a problem of disputed electors.
And how often are those tied? Besides NPV as extant only says the state allocates the electors to popular vote. The electors ate stilling voting so a faithless elector could break a tie.
Booman Tribune ~ Comments ~ The Popular Vote is a Bad Idea
Thanks for your humble response – I was aware of that – but we are discussing the electoral college, not all manner of other elections. You shouldn’t try to change the subject when you are losing an argument.
And you will note I said “has yet to produce a tie under the present system” the the 12th Amendment was introduced in 1804 after that tie and changed the system to allow electors to vote separately for president and vice president.
Neither of your points take away from the basic fact that a tie with 100 Million electors is a lot less likely than one where there are only 538 electors.
And neither do you address another flaw in the system – the First past the post system – which tends to polarize the electorate around two main competing parties when a single transferable vote system would allow a number of parties to flourish and would tend to favour more moderate candidates who can pick up second and lower preferences from eliminated candidates. This would allow (say) a Green or progressive candidate to stand and do well without splitting the Democratic vote and would encourage higher turnout and the development of consensus rather than base mobilization politics of which you complain so often.
“For example, Wyoming simply doesn’t deserve three votes.”
What does that do to the Republican “one man one vote” lawsuit? Much more than the discrepancy between population and registered voters is how many votes you get based on what state you live in. California, new York and yes Texas voters are short changed.
I like how you say this as if it would be a bad thing.
“Oh no, people might win by getting more people to vote for them, instead of gaming the system! The horror!”
There is a tremendous amount of “noise” in the voting system. Really, in any really close election, the margin of victory is provided by the voters who preferred one candidates hairstyle or selection of snacks. The reason we count votes minutely in a close election is not to arrive at some theologically perfect selection — there is no such thing. The reason is to confer legitimacy on one of the candidates in a race which realistically ended in a tie. The Electoral College is a system which has a much greater chance of producing “winners” whose legitimacy will be questioned by a large number of citizens and that is a good reason to dump it.
As far as small cities and rural areas being underrepresented — who the heck decided it’s cool if they’re overrepresented?
I think a lot of this issue could be solved by expanding Congress, which would in turn expand the Electoral College.
The last thing I read was there was something like 25 unelected staff members per member of Congress. That’s crazy. We’re talking close to 14,000 people if you include the actual elected officials.
If we increased the size of the House, that would reduce staffs and make Congress more responsive to the people because it would cost a lot less money per person to run a campaign. It would probably also open up the system to 3rd party candidates.
The Constitution says no more than 1 member for every 30,000 citizens. I think right now it’s 1 member for about 800,000 citizens. That’s not very representative. Maybe increasing the size of the House to 5,000 members, while not what the framers had in mind might be a good place to start.
Suggesting that WY should receive a fractional vote in the Electoral College (not to mention in the House of Representatives) is amusing but misses the real point. The number of Members in the House of Representatives is NOT fixed by the Constitution. Rather, it is set by legislation which can (and should) be changed. Just because the size of the House has remained static since 1912 or whatever doesn’t mean it’s set in stone, concrete or advanced composites. The Congress should, in order to reflect the equal protection clause the current crop of right-wing clowns on the SCOTUS prefer so much, change the system for establishing the size of the House by equating the value of one seat to that for the smallest population state as established by the decennial census. At least that way, a voter in CA would receive the same representation as a voter in WY.
An excellent and simple “good enough” solution. As of the 2010 census, the number of House Reps (for states) would only increase from 435 to 513. Completely manageable (and small for a lower house compared to other countries).
I said basically the same thing in my comment. I’m thinking increase the House to 5,000 members. I know that’s probably not feasible but it would be closer to what it says in the Constitution.
I can see adding 200 new House members being a good step in the right direction but I think if we’re going to do it we should really do it.
Agreed. And if we do that, then abolish the Senate, too.
the difference is that to expand the House only takes an act of Congress to disband the Senate we would need an entire new Constitution as it is specifically written that the number of Senators cannot be amended in the Constutition
I don’t think that guy would be in every county trying to figure out the winner of the national popular vote unless the national popular vote was close enough to be within the margin of error of normal vote-counting procedures.
In 2000, the vote wasn’t that close. Gore won the national popular vote by three quarters of a million. Every single precinct in the country would have had to give five extra votes to Gore for that to have been the wrong outcome. When you’re sampling the whole country, you’re less likely to end up in a recount situation, not more.
The only election in history that was within the margin of error, as far as I can recall, was 1960: Kennedy’s margin was 112,000, or 0.2% of all votes cast.
The popular vote isn’t a bad idea at all. Or, live by the Electoral College, die by the Electoral College.
You seem worried about campaign cash and effort being spent in one place over another. I’m way more concerned with the political process and strategy.
The problem with the Electoral College, besides the fact that it insulates actual democracy behind a bunch of political appointees, is that it can be rigged a hell of a lot easier than the popular vote can.
It worked well for Republicans in 2000. It has been working well for Democrats since 2008 and likely 2016 and going forward.
Until states with Republicans as the majority in the state house start carving up Electoral College votes not by percentage of the state won, but by district(s). Then you’ll get states allocating 70% of their Electoral College votes to the popular vote loser, simply because 3/4 of the districts are sparsely populated rural areas won by the Republican.
To me, the Electoral College is just bad for democracy, small d. It’s already a bulwark set up by aristocrats afraid of democracy, and if 2016 ends up with a Democrat wiping the floor with the Republican, we just might see more states carving out their Electoral College votes by district(s) to give the Republicans a handicap.
So, my question:
How would you feel about the Electoral College if the EC votes were divided up in the states, not based on popular vote, but on districts that can be gerrymandered and drawn up arbitrarily based solely on state legislator whim?
Republicans have a much better state game than the Democrats. Don’t put it past them.