Comments: Not so fast!

Finally someone talks sense on this issue. What people forget is that the electoral college is undemocratic in two distinct ways: overrepresentation of small states, and the winner-takes-all rule. For better or for worse, those two elements roughly cancel one another out at present: small state overrepresentation tends to favor the Republicans, and winner-takes-all favors the Democrats. Start hacking away at the winner-takes-all element, and you upset that equillibrium in a way that is likely to make the electoral college less representative of the popular vote, not more.

Now here's the scary part: the undemocratic element that favors the Republicans is anchored in the Constitution, while one that favors the Democrats is not. Some combination of state legislative action and state-level referenda would suffice to eliminate winner-takes-all in the states where it counts. Given strength of the Republicans in gerrymandered statehouses (e.g. PA, NY), it's a real possibility.

Mark my words: "electoral college reform" is going to become a Republican battle cry. Let's not get suckered.

Posted by JohnL at June 18, 2004 10:58 AM

You mention that the electoral college was designed to prevent one large region from dominating the others in national elections. Unspoken in that fact is that the electoral college system (versus national popular vote) mitigates corruption in those larger regions from get-out-the-dead vote and spurious vote counting methods (e.g., "pregnant chads"). Never underestimate the power of a Daley machine.

Posted by Jon. Loresch at June 23, 2004 08:56 AM

Clinton beat Bush, 43-38 in 1992.

Though it's funny that even though he never got even 50% in either election, newspapers called the results "landslides" - I'm giving the benefit of the doubt by saying they were referring to the Electoral College count, but I'm not dumb. They wanted to trump his victory.

Posted by Thomas at June 23, 2004 02:09 PM

I propose a system I call STV-PD, for Single Transferable Vote with Proportional Distribution. STV is the basis for so-called Instant Runoff Voting (IRV being a sub-class of STV), where voters select candidates in preference order, and after each round of counting, low-pulling candidates are eliminated until all but one more than the number of seats in question (1 in the case of IRV) remain. (There is more to this than I can really explain here. You might Google on 'Irish elections' and 'single transferable vote' to get a fuller picture.)
The proportional distribution comes into the picture at the first count. Electoral votes would be distributed by state, with all votes distributed proportionally according to percentage of the vote. After this first count, any candidate not receiving an electoral vote anywhere in the country is eliminated, and his votes shifted to their next preference. A second count is taken, and electoral votes distributed. After the second and all subsequent counts, the candidate with the lowest electoral total is eliminated and his votes transferred for the next count, until two remain.

My 2000 Electoral Counts under STV-PD:
1st Count:
Bush - 263
Gore - 262
Nader - 13

2nd Count: (everybody but these three eliminated, and some SWAGs to figure out which way the preferences might've gone)
Bush - 267
Gore - 261
Nader - 10

3rd Count: (Nader is eliminated)
Gore - 270
Bush - 268

A funny thing I noted from this simulation: Iowa and New Mexico go by 1 to Gore on the first count (4-3 in IA and 3-2 in NM), by 1 to Bush on the second, then back to Gore by 1 on the third. It would certainly have made for some drama (since I envision each round of the counting procedure done on consecutive days, starting with the 1st count on the Wednesday following Election Day) but that it would have been totally settled by that Friday night.

In Florida, Bush would have won by 15,000 votes, enough to split the state 13-12 with Gore on the third count.

There would only have been one place where one candidate would have been shut out: Gore would have beaten Bush 3-0 in DC, and most likely DC would have not had their little snit if it meant putting Bush in office instead of Al Gore.

Big margins: Gore 21-12 in New York and 30-24 in California; Bush 19-13 in Texas.

No "red" states, no "blue" states. Maybe a couple of "black-and-blue" states, though (IA and NM?)

Nader's first round electoral votes: 2 in CA; 1 in CO, FL, IL, MA, MI, NJ, NY, OH, OR, TX, and WI. (He would lose IL, MI, and OH in the second count)

Just a thought...

Posted by Scott Walker at July 30, 2004 05:39 AM

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