Originally posted 03/02/07

(Part 1 in a Series)
From local to national elections there has been a lot of activity lately by those already elected to change how we cast our votes, when we cast our votes and what we are casting our votes for. Reform is in the air and from what I can see all of it appears to benefit those in office instead of the electorate as a whole. From the Long Beach City Council Charter Reform proposal to the California Legislature changing the Presidential Primary date in California to the Electoral College—reform is a burgeoning business. Beginning with this post I will put forth my thoughts on how I am affected as a voter in the cardboard cubicle at my polling place by the changes proposed or enacted by those in office in a series of posts starting today with discussing the Electoral College then address voting in Presidential elections and will work my way to the Charter Reform propositions that affect Long Beach.

The cries after the 2000 election were as predictable as the sun rising, “The Electoral College is outdated/irrelevant/robs voters of their rights” pick one. Those who do not understand how our Republic works really do not understand the need for an Electoral College and how critical it is to keeping our country united and enable a peaceful transition of power every four or eight years. Instead they would rather Presidents be elected by giving the oath of office to the individual who receives the highest number of votes cast (note I did not say majority). Ironically many of these same people like to use the word “disenfranchised” and declare that this is what the Electoral College system does—it “disenfranchises” voters. When I hear this I think they do not know what the word “disenfranchise” means, but it sounds good and it makes it seem like you care for the little guy; what I think they may actually mean to say is that the Electoral College system discounts or causes to be irrelevant ballots cast by those favoring the candidate who has received the highest number of votes in an election should that candidate not win the election. Essentially, there is an “unfairness” to the election. To which I say: bull-hockey-pucks.

First every candidate and party and voter knows—or should know—the system by which Presidents and Vice-Presidents are elected to office; if they do not then they obviously should not be running for office or be involved in politics as they do not have a working knowledge of our Constitution. Using the population figures from the census taken every ten years each state is assigned a certain number of members of the House of Representatives, California currently has 53 members of the House and Rhode Island two. In addition every state regardless of size or population has two United States Senators. Our legislature is a bicameral body with a lower house (House of Representatives) distributing power to the states in correlation to their population, and an upper house equally distributing power to all states. In order to become a law a bill must pass through the House and then the Senate before being signed by the President. Many of you in my generation remember most of this from “Schoolhouse Rock” on Saturday mornings. Madison and the gang when writing the Constitution did this to create a balanced form of government and to ensure the Constitution would pass. Virginia delegates did not like that small states such as Rhode Island would be equally represented in the Senate, and small states did not like that big states would have greater representation in the House—in true political compromise since both large and small states had a problem with the proposal it was deemed acceptable.

Without going through the entire history of the Electoral College, it was essentially established to create a system acceptable to both small and large states who at the time were very skeptical of a strong central government. After the election of 1800 in which Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr tied in electoral votes the 12th Amendment was added to the Constitution and it has been the standard for our Presidential voting ever since. The Electoral College allots to each state electoral votes identical to the number of members of Congress from that state (or District of Columbia) and it is up to each state legislature to determine how its electoral votes will be awarded, virtually every state (exceptions in Nebraska and Maine) use the “winner take all method”.

As we have seen in most of the recent elections a candidate does not have to win the majority of the votes cast, or have the most votes of those cast, in order to win the election and become President. A candidate must however, win the majority of the 538 available electoral votes to win the election. How can this be fair? I won the election but the other guy beat me?

The Electoral College system of selecting our President ensures that every voter, from North Dakota to Florida to Vermont to Oregon matters. In campaigning for the job, a candidate must take note of Ohio and its 20 electoral votes as much as the Midwest strip of Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas and their 23 combined votes. The Electoral College system makes every state matter, not just those with large populations.
We cannot use a majority of votes cast system as there would be many times when no candidate will receive 50% of votes cast plus 1—not as long as there will be independent and third party candidates. Too often we would have to have another election between the top two candidates or some other form of run-off. That leaves an alternative option of the winner being the candidate with the most votes received regardless of what that percentage represents. This will eventually lead to our national politics looking like Italy’s or Belgium’s or many other countries with four, five, six or more political parties splitting the votes and requiring coalitions to form to create a ruling majority. Having seen the historical inability of such countries to have stable, consistent and quality governance I fear this would lead to a break up of the United States in time.

Therefore we have the Electoral College making all states matter. Were we to disband the Electoral College and go to some form of popular vote we would see a dramatic shift in national politics and unity. In order to be elected President a candidate could ignore every part of the country except the major population centers: New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Our President would not represent the United States of America, but rather the major cities of America, and our politics would react accordingly. The rest of the country would be essentially meaningless in Presidential politics and eventually react by sending anti-Urban candidates to represent them in Congress, essentially stalemating the federal government (many feel this may be a good result). I may be over reaching on this point but if you look at the long term results, thirty, fifty one hundred years in the future it seems less difficult to imagine.
Our Electoral College ensures elections that allow all voters to participate and have a political impact, regardless of what state they are from. Over the years both parties have benefited from this system vis-à-vis popular support, and will continue in the future to have elections where they or their opponent seems to have benefited. Most important when considering the Electoral College is this, since George Washington was elected as our first President in 1789 through George W. Bush’s election in 2004 we have enjoyed a smooth transition of power and governance—something few if any countries can claim during this period.