Abolishing the Electoral College – be careful what you wish for
Democrats would love, love, love to get rid of the EC. Their rhetoric is to establish a “make every vote count” democracy (republic? who needs it?). But the actual motivation is that they believe a national vote would favor them tremendously and would eliminate what they consider the disproportionate influence of less populous red states such as Oregon, and of so-called “swing” states such as Ohio.
Note, though, that many of the most important swing states – Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina – are quite populous. Take a look at how high up they are in the rankings of states by population, So they would remain very important, even with a national popular vote.
In fact, they are important swing states not just because they sometimes vote red and sometimes blue, but because they are populous states that do so. Swing states that are small, such as tiny New Hampshire, with its piddly two votes (CORRECTION: four votes; I apparently was thinking of its 2 Congressional districts rather than the EC), can have disproportionate influence in the primaries because they hold theirs early. But by the time of the general election, no one cares much about how New Hampshire goes. That’s true with the current EC system and it would also be true in a national popular vote election.
If Democrats are prone to cheat in big blue cities by manufacturing extra Democratic votes, a national popular vote would seem to make such cheating even more tantalizing and important to accomplish. And in a close election, the recounts would be a complete nightmare.
I wonder, though. Would the Democrats really get what they want? For example, the amount of cheating required might be a bit harder to gauge in a national popular vote. It seems to me it could be easier to do this successfully on a state-by-state basis than on a national one.
Also, in a state such as California in which an overwhelmingly blue vote is a foregone conclusion, perhaps a lot of Republicans stay home on Election Day. After all, why bother to vote when your vote really doesn’t count? But with a national popular vote, they might be motivated into coming to the polls (or sending in those absentee ballots) instead.
The Democrats will continue to push for the end of the EC, of course, because they believe it would help them immeasurably. And perhaps it would.
And yet I seem to recall that one big argument in 2016 prior to the election was that Trump had no EC path to victory, or at least an exceedingly narrow one (see this, for example, a WaPo article that says his path isn’t just narrow, it’s “nonexistent”).
And consider that in a state like NY or California, even if 20% of black votes defect to Trump those states will still reliably go blue and their huge number of electoral votes will go to Democrats. But in a national popular vote, such a shift could substantially cut into the Democrats’ total popular vote enough to deny them the margin of victory. That would be ironic, wouldn’t it?
Do I really think abolishing the EC would favor Republicans? No, I do not. But I think it could do so, and that’s why I subtitled this post – addressing those Democrats who would like to get rid of it – “be careful what you wish for.”
[NOTE: Here’s an article from 2013 on why abolishing the EC might benefit the GOP. It’s outdated and assumes some things that changed for the 2016 election, but it’s still an interesting example of thinking outside the box on the topic.]
I guess I didn’t pay enough attention, but did Trump even campaign in California or New York? Or at least as much as he would have if we had a popular vote election. I agree with you that there is a number of Republicans who stayed home because their vote wouldn’t have made a difference.
Boy, Democrats sure want to abolish the Electoral College. Their tongues are practically hanging out.
In light of Elizabeth Warren’s declaration that she wants to be the last president elected by the EC — so presumably she will work for abolition if she becomes president — I’ve been poking around the web. Here’s a reasonably even-handed assessment of the whys, wherefores and whatnots:
http://factmyth.com/can-the-electoral-college-system-be-changed/
According to which, getting around the EC requires either a full-scale amendment to the Constitution, which is quite difficult, or the side-door change to state rules, the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com
Neo today: ‘Also, in a state such as California in which an overwhelmingly blue vote is a foregone conclusion, perhaps a lot of Republicans stay home on Election Day.’
Yes I think they have in the past and this coming year they might say, “We have had enough” and show up in all the blue states. Wouldn’t that be fun.
Get rid of the Electoral College and it’s only a matter of time before we consistently see Bloombergian billionaires running as independent Presidential candidates and their #1 goal would be siphoning off Democratic votes in major population centers.
Mike
This is strictly an academic discussion since a constitutional amendment would be required to do away with the Electoral College. there is no way that they can get the requisite number of state legislatures to give up the power of the EC, which requires the candidates to cater to their needs as well as those of NY and CA.
Oregon last voted Republican in 1984 in a presidential election.
This is strictly an academic discussion since a constitutional amendment would be required to do away with the Electoral College
stu: I’m not so sure. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact:
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes across all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Explanation. It has been enacted into law in 16 jurisdictions with 196 electoral votes (CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, HI, IL, MA, MD, NJ, NM, NY, OR, RI, VT, WA). The bill will go into effect when enacted by states with an additional 74 electoral votes.
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com
On paper the NPVIC would work if adopted by enough states. neo did a post on it somewhere back.
neo writes, “Also, in a state such as California in which an overwhelmingly blue vote is a foregone conclusion, perhaps a lot of Republicans stay home on Election Day. After all, why bother to vote when your vote *really* doesn’t count?”
I have now lived as an adult in Massachusetts, Maryland, Dee Cee, Maryland (again), and now California — and I came to the conclusion years ago that indeed, my “vote *really* doesn’t count,” certainly not as far as the Electoral College is concerned.
If Trump wins the popular vote next year, which I consider possible, that would be the end of such talk for a decade. It will require some attention to vote fraud but is possible,
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a delusion of Blue Staters who can’t conceive of the other side winning. It wouldn’t survive past even one election where a Democrat wins the state but the Electoral Votes go to the GOP.
What’s most disturbing are the folks who not only are willing to give their political power away but clearly don’t understand the federalist principles upon which America was built,
Mike
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact is a delusion of Blue Staters who can’t conceive of the other side winning. It wouldn’t survive past even one election where a Democrat wins the state but the Electoral Votes go to the GOP.
MBunge: So you say.
I say Democrats, even if they are deluded in many ways, can do voting math quite well. My bet is they can accept a loss or two if it gives them casino odds in the long run.
Two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. It just gets uglier and uglier.
I’m all for changing the Electoral College but in the opposite direction, making it more representative. Let each Electoral vote be cast the way each Congressional District votes. I feel this would empower those living in Red areas of Blue states. And maybe the Parties will work harder.
“So you say.”
I will bet you actual money that immediately after the NPVIC results in Blue State Electoral Votes going to a GOP candidate, the very same people who campaigned FOR the compact will be filing lawsuits to overturn it.
Mike
I have just recently advised my conservative relatives in California to vote in the presidential election even if there’s no other office they want to bother voting for, specifically to help the Rs win “the popular vote” and defuse this noxious National Popular Vote Compact.
MBunge: Not interested.
You have your opinions. Sometimes I agree with you — and note you never acknowledge — but mostly you offer loud ipse dixits with little support and no sourcing.
Not impressed.
It is a tall hurdle to amend the Constitution to abolish the EC and make mob rule, aka the popular vote, to determine who is the chief executive. That would be a call to CW2. We might be flyover country deplorables but we are armed and ready to aim.
It’s not about actually abolishing the EC. It’s about railing against it as an example of how America’s constitutional foundations are fundamentally unjust. It’s propaganda to affect the perceptions of useful idiots.
If you wish to fight social injustice, vote for the Democrat Party!
Neo
And in a close election, the recounts would be a complete nightmare.
The Florida 2000 recount, which was for only one state, was one big mess. Times 50? No thanks.
The Democrat shenanigans in the Florida 2000 recount- chads etc- convinced me to change from choosing between Third Party and Republican to Republican only. It is a cop-out to vote Third Party if that helps Democrats win.
I live in a state where my vote doesn’t count. The first and last time I tried to vote was in 2012. There was a long line at my polling place, but thankfully young volunteers decked out in Obama t-shirts were handing out pizza to everyone on the premises (very illegally, by the way). When 8 PM rolled around, the state was immediately declared for Obama while I had at least a half hour to wait in line. With no electoral college, would I have turned around and left as I did that day?
Democrats have no principles, merely forensic improvisations. The electoral college has been an impediment to them the last 20 years, so they want it eliminated. Gerrymandering was fine in 1984 when it benefited Democrats all over the place, an abomination now that that advantage has been cancelled out. (Democratic votes are less efficiently distributed than Republican votes, so they would be at a mild disadvantage in a single-member-district system even were there no gerrymandering at all).
It’s useful to retain the use of state-by-state electoral votes as a tabulation method in order to contain certain political pathologies to the states where they occur. Vote fraud is now routine in areas dominated by the Democratic Party and the current apportionment system is what limits its ill effects.
It’s not about actually abolishing the EC. It’s about railing against it as an example of how America’s constitutional foundations are fundamentally unjust. It’s propaganda to affect the perceptions of useful idiots.
Not about it in toto. You do have the fanciful blather from black chauvinists about the electoral college being set up to promote chattel slavery.
Neo sai: ‘Also, in a state such as California in which an overwhelmingly blue vote is a foregone conclusion, perhaps a lot of Republicans stay home on Election Day.’
How many remember the “call the election before the polls closed” fiascos in 1980 and 1984 and in 2000 when they called Florida for Gore before the polls in the heavily republican panhandle had closed. In 1985, the networks agreed not to call states until “most” polls have closed. In the Bush Gore election, the media was accused of calling states early for Gore and late for Bush to make it look like Gore was rolling.
Interesting facts about the California Vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Registered voters in California in 2016
Registered voters 18,055,783 48.8%
Democratic 7,932,373 43.9%
Republican 5,225,675 28.9%
D–R spread +2,706,698
D-R Ratio 1.52 to 1
Presidential Vote
Democratic Hillary Clinton 8,753,788 61.73%
Republican Donald Trump 4,483,810 31.62%
Independents total 943,997 6.65%
D–R spread +4,269,978
D-R Ratio 1.95 to 1
Democrats got 821,415 more votes than their registration. Republican got 741,865 less.
Because of the open primaries, there were precincts in California where republicans had no one to vote for. They and republican leaning independents stayed home. They didn’t expect to carry California for Trump, didn’t have a senate candidate to vote for, and probably in some local elections didn’t even have the dog catcher to vote for. I’ll bet that no other state saw such a drop off of ratios between registered voters and votes cast. It is one of the reasons why Hillary’s I-won-the-popular-vote means nothing. An Neo – you’re right – we can show republicans stayed home.
The most common useful idiot argument for abolishing the EC I’ve heard is “we don’t vote that way for anything else!!” [applause from clapping seals]
To which I say: of course not, as no other elected office represents every single US citizen (and, in the case of Democrats, illegals too!).
It’s important that land, resources, canals, flyways, sea shores, forests, lakes, rivers, harbors, mountains, animals and plants….on and on…it’s important that they have some power in government—not just people. Otherwise California takes all Colorado water and LA takes all Delta water and trains only go to large cities and aircraft routes ignore Wyoming, we never include New Hampshire in the electrical and telephone networks, and we strip bare the forests in Oregon and Washington, and ship Columbia River water to California.
If we go toward direct democracy in the presidential elections, we lose the same arguments in federal senatorial elections and in state senatorial elections too.
All this was covered, supposedly, in junior high school civics.
Abolishing the EC in its entirety requires a constitutional amendment. That ain’t happening no matter how much Democrats wish it.
As to the “National Popular Vote Interstate Compact”, that will last right up to its first court challenge. You can’t just disenfranchise the majority in your state just because you want to.
However, what can happen, without any constitutional amendment or major court challenge, is for each of the states to decide to apportion their electoral votes by congressional district, rather than winner-take-all, with the extra two EC votes apportioned for the two senators going to whomever wins the popular vote in that state. We already have two states that do it that way – Nebraska and Maine.
I, personally, think this is the way to go. And I also believe it will, over all, probably benefit the GOP more than the Democrats.
First off, it would eliminate the disenfranchisement of voters in the rural parts of states that are completely dominated by one or two big cities – states such as Illinois, California, New York etc. It would also go the other way and eliminate the disenfranchisement of voters in cities that are dominated by a much more rural state population – places such as Austin Texas, Kansas City and St Louis Missouri and Indianapolis Indiana.
Who it will not benefit, are the candidates. They will have to campaign everywhere.
“and note you never acknowledge”
Dude, that is a pretty embarrassing thing to admit matters to you. Like most of the people who post here and plenty of other places, I have a life and don’t really have time to yammer back and forth with folks online like when I was young and had not a care in the world.
Mike
Rush Limbaugh once wanted to abolish the Electoral College. Back in the late 1990’s he was sure that Republicans outnumbered Democrats and that the 2000 election would show Bush with more votes than Gore but Gore would win the electoral. The opposite happened. Rush now thinks popular vote is tyranny.
It goes back and forth. If Republicans had a candidate get more votes nationwide but not win they too would question the Electoral College.
If it ain’t been broke in >200 years, don’t fix it!
How many socio-political fixes have been made in the last 60 years, and their consequences:
Here are some:
-oral contraceptives, which led to sleeping around, led by hippies, which led to
-babies, and the loss of “nice girls” forever.
-so we did no-fault divorce, which led to loss of the nuclear family and a huge number of fatherless boys, many on the black side, which led to thugs
-and the above led to a declining US birth rate, which led to the employment of millions of illegal migrants because there “were jobs Americans would not do”.
-plus the vigorous and inappropriate enforcement of separation of church and state
-which led to a collapse of moral teachings and moral standards
-which led in part to the drug crisis
And here we are, currently controlled by a House full of collectivists who march in lockstep as a sign of their moral insufficiency. They used to be called Representatives, and their primary duty was fiscal. Now it’s about hogswill.
Rush Limbaugh once wanted to abolish the Electoral College. Back in the late 1990’s he was sure that Republicans outnumbered Democrats and that the 2000 election would show Bush with more votes than Gore but Gore would win the electoral. The opposite happened.
Which talking point mill is peddling this factoid?
Art Deco
I used to have a political blog back then [since gone with the wind]. He wrote an article claiming that it might be time to end the electoral college.
People do change their mind according to the circumstances and the political climate.
Here is Trump in 2012:
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy.
8:45 PM · Nov 6, 2012
I used to have a political blog back then [since gone with the wind]. He wrote an article claiming that it might be time to end the electoral college. People do change their mind according to the circumstances and the political climate.
He published two books prior to 2000. You can search the text. The electoral college is not mentioned even once.
Art Deco
Rush wrote about it in a column. Not everything he writes in his columns makes it into his books. The point is that political views do change even if someone stays on ‘one side’ for years. Trump’s tweet shows that clearly. There are issues with the Electoral College but I would not call it a disaster for a democracy as Trump did.
Rush wrote about it in a column.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22Citation_needed%22.jpg