The utter fallacy of the Electoral College

In 2000, George Walker Bush was awarded the pResidency over Albert Arnold Gore, Jr., 271-267, despite losing the popular vote by half a million votes. This called attention to the problems existing with the Electoral College system. But how bad could the problems be if the EC and the popular vote dissented only three times since the Civil War?

Well, they could be really bad. I worked out what would have happened in 2000 if all the states that * won or was alleged to have one were won by * by one or two votes and all the states that Gore won were won by Gore unanimously, keeping turnout the same as in 2000 and eliminating third parties. Here were the results:

Gore 80,588,195 75.77% 267 EV
Bush 25,766,716 24.23% 271 EV
Gore Plurality 54,821,479

In this situation, Gore would have won the popular vote by over 50 million votes. But under the Electoral College, * would have won the pResidency despite having failed to recieve a quarter of the total votes cast. I know it's not a realistic situation, but it's possible...

King Wyoming has 450,000 people and 3 electoral votes.

Montana has 900,000 people and 3 electoral votes.

How the fuck is that fair!? Wyomingites have TWICE as much presidential electing power as Montanans! It only gets worse the more populated your state is.

In Dekalb County, Georgia there are over half a million votes.

In Fulton County it is over a million votes.

And yet the people in each of these counties have less representation in the electoral college than does Wyoming and Montana. For example, Dekalb County has a single vote for the entire district..not three. Fulton County has enough people for only 2 votes in the EC, not 3 as does Montana.

And yet both Fulton and Dekalb counties went overwhelmingly for Gore in 2000. The state of Georgia cast all of its 13 electoral votes for shrub. As long as we have an electoral college we should demand sampling from in the census. And that the redistricting occur every four years rather than every ten.

But why do we even rely on this system, since it waters down the will of the people? Isn't four times more that enough to show this system aint reliable? The first time in 1824 was the year this institution should of been abolished!

This is why I am totally opposed to calls to further dilute or limit our democratic options. Between the elite Senate, the filtering Electoral College, and the absence of initiative, referendum, and recall at the federal level, we already have to take two quick doubles and close our eyes in order to see ourselves as a democracy at all.

did they lose one in the last redistricting?

It takes around half a million votes to have a single Congressman. Montana has only one, not having more than a million people. Then you add in the two Senators and you have 3 electoral votes. Georgia has 13 Representatives, add the additional two and in 2004 this state will have 15 electoral votes.

Is Delaware (I think Delaware) has LESS people than Montana, but two CDs and 4 EVs.

nt

But the 1990 census lost us one, and we've had just three since then. We were about 8,000 people short of regaining the 2nd CD in 2002, but alas, it went to Georgia.

now Delaware just has three ev's doesn't it?

DE has 3 EV's.

DC has slightly more people than Wyoming. But I never hear anybody here complaining about the tyranny of the minority in that case.

...all states whose voting age population is below the national average per state are overrepresented relative to the whole (rather than relative just to WY). I talk about WY and CA only because they're the most extreme cases, but you're right about DC being grossly overrepresented, too.

Right wingnuts were armed and ready to attack the electoral college had, as experts were predicting, Gore won the E.C. but not the popular vote. They would have handicapped his presidency from the get-go using just that point, yet with their guy in power he's got a mandate from god.

It's always them I hear braying out on command "This is a republic, not a democracy!"

We used to be a democratic republic, hence the original name of our party...the Democratic-Republicans. But it is so much simplier just to eliminate the adjective, and just go with any noun!

Because the number of electors is determined by population rather than eligible voter counts, the slave states enjoyed greater representation because of their slave populations but voting was limited to a smaller percentage of their total population. What would happen if Congressional representation were re-drawn based on an eligible voter census rather than gross propulation? Wouldn't that hurt states that have restricted voter rights, like Florida?

Virginia, the California of the time, wanted proportional representation. Delaware or Connecticut, can't remember exactly which but I think it was Delaware, wanted equal representation for each state. They compromised with the senate being equal and house being proportional.

The compromise between Free and Slave states was the 3/5ths compromise. Slave states wanted to count slaves as whole people, but free states objected that since slaves were not citizens, they should not count toward represented population. They settled on slaves being counted as 3/5ths of a person.

I believe Rhode Island and perhaps New Hampshire was also concerned about being marginalized by directly proportionate representation, which was favored by Virginia and New York.

The Electoral College was created to preserve the role and importance of the several States in electing the President, and also to provide an emergency means of correcting a possibly terrible mistake at the polls (if, for example the person elected were discovered to be a traitor or some other disqualifying status). Since the latter would require the switching of pledged electors, it would come into play only in the most egregious cases. BTW, the number of Electoral votes each state has is the total of its representatives in the House and Senate, so 3 is as low as it gets.

Without the bicameral legislature and the Electoral College, it is unlikely the Constitution could have been ratified at all.

To those who think parts of the Constitution are outdated or unworkable, it does contain a mechanism to address that. It's called the Amendment process.

assumed that each state would have an election for president.

The electors are chosen by whatever manner the state legislatures determine. Remember in Florida 2000? The Florida legislature always had their fallback position that if the courts didn't rule for them, they would just name their own slate of electors and be done with it. That's right out of the Constitution.

The popular election for president is not constitutionally mandated. Each state legislature can name their electors and those electors are free to do what they want. An example is in 1824, the State of New York gave electoral votes to all four guys running Adams, Jackson, Clay and Crawford. I don't think New York even had an election for president in 1824, but by that year most states had. The book I looked at for reference said it started listed popular returne for president in 1824 (NY left out), because of the "pronounced trend by 1824 for the election of presidential electors by popular vote, ..."


The four year presidential election by the people is not in the Constitution. It evolved over many years and many elections later. Originally the president was picked by the electors who were picked by the state legislatures. And that was not an error. State Legislatures were given enormous powers by the Constitution. They named senators, and the 10th Amendment made clear that any power not specifically given to the congress or president, belonged to the state legislatures.

The fact that the powers of the state legislatures have been ignored and whittled away to pretty much nothing, doesn't change the fact that originally they were supposed to be a very strong part of government, perhaps the strongest.

into what representatives can do now. If there is a prison in their district the inmates count as part of their constituency. But they are prevented from voting.

and the EV and the 3/5ths house rule was to artificially prop up the representation (and the power) of slave states.

and states aren't as integral to this country as they once were w.r.t. the Presidential election process. The EC should be scraped and a majority wins election process should be put in place.

...the margin can be even more absurd, if Bush wins the bottom 40 states plus DC (highly unlikely, I know), then he'll get even fewer votes but still win in the EC.

Not to mention that my vote counts roughly one fifth of this of a Wyomingite.

with most of the comments above, let me point out the the EC is a time honored tradition against a phenom. that we liberals are currently struggling to overcome: the use of misinformation & massive money to influence an uniformed populace.

now, i do wish Gore were in charge right now. no doubt about that. but what about the 04 elections? let's not forget the whole clenis mess. does anyone here believe that a liberal could get fair treatment in today's media climate? hell, look at dean- a centrist with a proven centrist record being smeared as "too liberal!" that meme just won't die!

it's true the EC should be reformed. it shouldn't be the case that states are "all or nothing" in EC votes. but as a bulwark against demagogues, poisonous rhetoric, and massive media manipulation, the EC is a good idea.

a better way could be to disengage the EC with the geopolitical boundaries. they could be shifted to reflect some fair representation, where voter's votes would be reflected in EC groupings on the basis of actual population, or something like that.

just an idea, flame away.

...but is it a good one? It doesn't cure the diseases of excessive corporate contributions and of uninformed people. In fact, it exacerbates the problems of corporate control of campaign money and negative campaigning by confining them to a handful of swing states. Who was, when was, the last Republicratic presidential candidate to visit, say, Alaska? Or Wyoming, the state that's lucky if people stop there to refuel? The candidates don't bother with those, but rather with large swing states such as Missouri, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.

Now, the winner take all system is only one problem of the EC (it's ironic that Jim Robinson supports the EC even though it makes his vote not count). The other three are that it gives small states disproportionate power, that it punishes states with high voter turnout, and that it corresponds to population only roughly (compare that with a system that mandates that each state's electoral power is equal to its total number of eligible plus a constant equal to 1/217.5 of the total nubmer of eligible voters in the US).

but I know that will never happen. Thus, I am open to the idea of reforming the electoral college. Maybe do away with the electors themselves, but keep the numbers of votes each state gets the same (reps + sens). Then, give each congressional district a vote; then 2 at large votes for the states.

The Constitution does not mandate winner take all electoral votes. Originally nearly all states elected 1 elector per Congressional District and 2 at large. But the rise of political parties pushed the states to change to winner take all, since the Party Bosses felt it gave them more power when they delivered all a states EV to one candidate.
Currently two states have switched back to district voting: Maine and Nebraska. Each awards one elector to the winner of each Congressional District (2 in ME and 3 in NB) and 2 to the winner of the states. So far, neither state has split its electors, though one CD in ME came close to going for Bush in 2000..

If all Electors in 2000 were awarded to the winner of each Congressional District, plus 2 to the winner of each state. Bush would have won 288 EV (228 CD plus 30 states) instead of 271 in 2000 (see http://www.polidata.org/prcd/wpr1c19a.pdf)

"originally nearly all states elected 1 elector per Congressional District and 2 at large."

"Currently two states have switched back to district voting"

I've never heard of this being used in the past. I know it is used in a few states today.

As I have an interest in this topic, please show me where I can read more on the topic of states in our early history assigning electoral votes by congressional district and two extra for the state? Looking at the electoral maps of our past elections, I can't pick out any obvious evidence of such. Please point me in some direction.

My own understanding was that in the early days, state legislatures would pick prominant men as electors, and they were free to vote for whoever they wanted. Then over time, states legislatures began passing laws binding their electors to the winner of the state's popular votes. If this is wrong, help me out.

You are correct and I was mistaken. In the late 1700's and early 1800's most electors were selected by state legislatures. However voting for electors by districts was common, in most cases these were "special" presidential elector districts, but in many cases they were the Congressional districts, plus 2 at large.
For rather good review of how each state selected electors see:
http://www.thegreenpapers.com/Hx/ElectoralCollege.html

The number of states with district voting were:
Election District voting
1789........2
1792........3
1796........4
1800........4
1804........5
1808........4
1812........4
1816........3
1820........6
1824........6
1828........4
1832........1
1836........0

The last state to drop state legislature selection of electors and go to popular vote was SC, sometime after 1836. After that there have been few changes from the state wide, winner take all selections we have now. In 1792 Michigan went to district selection for one election, in 1972 ME, and in 1996 NE, went to selecting 1 elector by Congressional districts and 2 by state wide winner.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

That would make it map too closely with the congressional districts. If you think that redistricting and gerrymandering is a problem now, just imagine it if the contressional districts also directly went to electoral votes. I believe that the total electoral votes from the congressional districts should be divided proportionally according to the overall popular vote for the entire state, with the extra two going to the overall state winner.

Remember the Constitution gives each state the right to select electors by any method. If the 11 largest states each passed a law saying their electoral votes would be awarded to the National Popular vote winner (regardless of who won that state), then the popular vote winner would be elected! Thus, no constitutional amendment would be needed to abolish the EC.
Of course it doesn't have to be the 11 biggest states, any combination of states which have electoral votes equal to, or greater than, 270 could pass state legislation that would effectively end the small state bias of the EC. If the Democratically controlled states of NY, CA, MI, IL, PA, and NJ took the lead and pushed for this simple democratic reform, maybe the biases of the EC woudl be history

An interesting piece of information about this electoral college issue:

Reference sources indicate that over the past 200 years, over 700 proposals have been introduced in Congress to reform or eliminate the Electoral College. There have been more proposals for Constitutional amendments on changing the Electoral College than on any other subject. The American Bar Association has criticized the Electoral College as "archaic" and "ambiguous" and its polling showed 69 percent of lawyers favored abolishing it in 1987. But surveys of political scientists have supported continuation of the Electoral College. Public opinion polls have shown Americans favored abolishing it by majorities of 58 percent in 1967; 81 percent in 1968; and 75 percent in 1981.

This comes from http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/faq.html.

This is just another case of the will of the people being subverted by those with vested interests in the status quo.

Do we really need this antiquated carry over from aristocratic monarchies?

From the same FAQ:

The founders appropriated the concept of electors from the Holy Roman Empire (962 - 1806). An elector was one of a number of princes of the various German states within the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the German king (who generally was crowned as emperor). The term "college" (from the Latin collegium), refers to a body of persons that act as a unit, as in the college of cardinals who advise the Pope and vote in papal elections. In the early 1800s, the term "electoral college" came into general usage as the unofficial designation for the group of citizens selected to cast votes for President and Vice President. It was first written into Federal law in 1845, and today the term appears in 3 U.S.C. section 4, in the section heading and in the text as "college of electors."

The problem is the winner take all nature of the system. I'd like a system where the Electoral votes representing the representative districts were split proportionally according to the statewide vote, and the remaining two votes going to the overall statewide winner.

Remember the big outcry after the Selection about the undemocratic system in which the candidate with the most popular votes is not permitted to win? Remember when we demanded that Congress abolish the Electoral College, or at a minimum got rid of the winner-take-all and apportion the electoral votes according to the popular vote?

Except for the Black Caucus, the Congressional Democrats were as eager as the Republicans to put the Selection behind them.

and say something about reforming/abolishing the EC?

...but they failed.

NY, FYI, is the state that loses the most from the EC if you calculate voters for the state winner per electoral vote rather than total voters in teh state per electoral vote. Since NY is not only very largely populated but also very safely Democratic, the number of voters for the winner per elector is higher than this of more competitive California.

Analysis of 2000 Presidential Election
-by Simon Sheppard

...

The system by which a president is chosen – the Electoral College – is biased in favor of the Republican Party. And recent demographic trends, reflected in the census figures just being released, will further entrench that bias.

The census figures, which tend to favor the Republican Party by undercounting urban and minority populations, are almost uniformly bad news for the Democratic Party at the presidential, as well as congressional, level. Reapportionment of congressional districts means every representative gained or lost in each state is also a vote in the Electoral College gained or lost in that state... census figures are the latest indication of the long-term decline in the political position of the Democratic Party. Throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century the heartland Democratic states of the Midwest and Northeast have consistently exported people – and voters – to the Republican South and West. This shifting balance of the population is reflected in the Electoral College...

...

If, back in 1952, Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson had won exactly the same states Al Gore did in 2000 he would have beaten Dwight Eisenhower by 272 votes to 259 in the Electoral College. Even as late as 1988, if Democrat Michael Dukakis had won the Gore states he would have beaten Bush senior by 271 votes to 267 in the Electoral College – an exact reversal of the Bush junior margin twelve years later... It's effectively impossible for a Republican to get blown out in the Electoral College the way Democratic candidates were in 1972 and 1984 ... So, while Republicans have won more than three quarters of the Electoral College on six occasions since World War II, only Lyndon Johnson has achieved that feat for the Democratic Party...

...

It was the thin states that gave Bush the presidency... it is the thin states that make it so difficult to get the required three-quarters majority necessary to ratify an amendment to the Constitution. The thin states killed the Equal Rights Amendment, even though polls consistently showed a popular majority supported that proposal becoming law. Ironically, they could again use their disproportionate weight, compared to population, to kill an amendment intended to better represent the popular will.

...

http://www.presidentelect.org/art_sheppard_e2000an.html

------

Even if the GOP didn't use any dirty election tricks, the Electoral College increasingly favors "red" states. We Democrats need to worry less about voting machine conspiracy theories and more about a system which is inherently biased against us and against the will of the people. While most polls reveal that the majority of the electorate are left of the political center, we have a system that favors the right, thereby producing a government that is, on average, to the right of the electorate as a whole.