October 14, 2004

• Good post. I've never been particularly clear on the EC. Good explanations. I'm still a bit unclear on one thing, though it is rather exotic. Imagine, for argument's sake, that a third party candidate with no political party affiliation appeared a year before the election and managed to carry the popular vote in a vast majority of the states. Where do this left-field candidate's electors come from? The explanation on the site of where Electors come from seems to presume only the Democratic and Republican parties, like many explanations of the US political system. Would this mythical candidate have to rely on GOP/Dem electors in some states?
• I still can't believe the uproar about Gore winning the popular vote and losing the election. If we didn't all learn how the EC works back in high school, it's our own fault. ;) I don't really like it, but I get it. I guess whether one likes the system depends on whether one believes that the states should choose the president or whether the citizens should. To me, it makes sense that the citizens should. My problem lies here: say we have three states (supposing this for the sake of argument does work, even though we have more than three states), each have a population of 10,000,000, and each has 20 electoral votes. We have an election, and here are the results: State A: 9,999,999 vote Candidate X 1 vote Candidate Y State B: 4,999,999 vote Candidate X 5,000,001 vote Candidate Y State C: 4,999,999 vote Candidate X 5,000,001 vote Candidate Y Candidate Y wins States B and C, therefore earning 40 electoral votes. Candidate X wins State A, earning only 20 electoral votes (half as many as the winnter). But Candidate X got about 20,000,000 citizen votes, about twice as many as the winner... yet Candidate X loses. I keep reading about "defending the states," but this I really, really don't get.
• Nat-- Electors have no obligation to cast their electoral votes for the candidate who wins that state's popular vote.
• And Alex points out another glaring problem. The whole "every vote counts" thing ... yeah, your vote might count if you live in a swing state. My vote in my non-swing state is only going to cause one thing: a minor inconvenience for me.
• That is if you only look at voting on a national scale, and not a local one as well.
• I think it's long past time to eliminate the Electoral College. But that could possibly open things up for third parties, so you know nobody in power now is pushing for that. Also you'd have to establish a runoff system (if no-one gets a majority, take the highest vote getters and go again). It'd be a hassle, but imminently more fair. To continue with iguanapolitico's mathematical points, the EC also doesn't reward voter turnout imagine this: what if in Florida, because of the weather or Ricky Williams or whatever, only 5 people come out and vote. Bush takes the state, 3 votes to 2. Then, suppose in Arkansas a MILLION people come out and vote, and Kerry takes the state, 999,997 to 2, with 1 vote going to Nader (thanks, Frieda!). In the EC system, Bush gets 26 votes from Florida, Kerry gets 6 from Arkansas. Despite the fact that more people in Arkansas cared enough to vote and more people in the country (if the country were condensed to those two states) wanted Kerry than Bush. Not fair.
• Oh. I see I've just said what iguanopolitico already said. But much less clearly. Mea Culpa.
• Actually, Tenacious, I like your point about Ricky Williams. I hadn't considered that. What we're both pointing out is it's state-take-all, regardless of how many citizens in what proportions voted for whom. Bleh.
• I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I don't have much of a beef with the electoral college. The concept is not that awful: We live in a republican union of (in theory) sovereign states, so what the majority of states want is the overriding factor in a national election. I do, believe, however, that the electoral votes could be cast in a more equitable fashion -- perhaps with candidates winning an electoral vote for each congressional voting district they win, and then taking the two "senatorial" electoral votes if they win the whole state. Another thought that struck me recently as I tried to figure out to whom to give my vote: I'm not voting for the man. I'm not voting for the electors who will pick the man. I am voting for the electors who will pick the man who will pick the several hundred people who will actually run the country. The personality, demeanor and stage presence of Bush and Kerry is irrelevant. Who are these guys going to pick to run the country? That's the real issue.
• Possum: your second paragraph is something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Most of my life I haven't worried that much about who is president, per se, because we have quite a system of checks and balances, the house and the senate, etc, and it honestly never seemed like the president, as one individual, had all that much power. Bush's accomplishments in his four years have changed my mind to an extent. He has pushed through some big stuff (tax refund/cuts, war) that has much of the nation and the world reeling. He didn't do it alone, but I believe he was responsible for getting everyone to go along with him. These days I'm more interested in the president, as individual, than I previously was. I do still agree, it's not just the man we're electing. It's just that months/years ago, I believed that even more strongly than I do now.
• Alex - thanks, but that doesn't answer my question. It just restates something that was explained clearly on the ECzine site. My question is, some states have a committee, presumably appointed by the legislature, to choose electors. Assume the committee is honest and bipartisan for the sake of argument, so no problem for a sudden third party candidate winner. one state asks the actual winning candidate for his electors, so again, no problem. what about the other states? is a third party independent candidate forced to rely on partisan Dem or GOP electors from their party primaries, for example?
• this is from seanboy's site but as of yet unposted: (i let someone ask on my comp) "Question: What is the logic in counting people who [can't vote as part of the populous toward the electoral college?]<--(assuming this part as i can't see it) Since most ex convicts and prisoners probably wouldn't vote the way their "representatives" would vote, is there any validity to this or just another "convenient orversight"?"
• Iguana - I can see why you might not like the EC system strictly on a 'one person, one vote' principle, but if you read over the ECzine site it makes clear the Electoral College is meant to be a Real World system. In short, according to ECzine, the EC was envisioned to iron out inequities and undue influences that could arise from Direct Election in the fallible, unjust real world. So, the EC envisions that the example you described would not reasonably occur unless the states B/C were clustered in one fairly homogenous, similar voting region (such as the southern US), while state A was regionally different. In that case, the EC says 'too bad for Candidate Y', who's only somewhat popular in states B/C, to ensure the B/C can't lord it over state A by electing a regional candidate who'll inequitably favor one region's interests. The EC setup attempts to force candidates to appeal to a broad cross-section of the US, similar to a parliamentary system that carefully avoids giving too many seats to a single province. Of course, there's nothing stopping a smart politician Y from acting sympathetic to state A, then completely ignoring them once he is elected.
• One more nag, Iguana - it's important to vote, even in non-swing states, in order to prove your existence to the political parties. If you look at the breakdown of the popular vote in 2000 by state, you see that many states are reasonably close. In most states, even if a political party was confident of winning the state going into the election, the opposition still got a very respectable showing. Even in most non-swing states the results were close enough that the winning party could conceivably lose the next time around. This forces the winner to continue to try and appeal to a reasonably broad cross-section of voters in those states. The greater the percentage of the actual vote a candidate or party wins, the greater the likelihood that remaining citizens will be disenfranchised as the winner sees no need to service them. i.e. if no libertarians actually vote in Vermont, there's no need to pay attention to them even if they make up 90% of the eligible voters. This is exactly what's wrong with the gerrymandering situation in the congressional districts. Gerrymandering of districts is increasingly allowing a single political party to control states that are reasonably split in party support. The result is the controlling party can confidently ignore the voices of a large portion of the voters, even close to 50%.
• Iguana - I apologize, ignore my second last post. In a fit of blatant stupidity I misread your initial argument. I think the answer to your case is still that the EC is meant to act as a Real World system, and already assumes that the scenario you describe is fairly impossible by acknowledging the large number of states.
• Nal- as to your question about third-party victories, and their electors: Electors are chosen by the parties themselves. If Dave Smith from the Eat American Babies party carries Ohio (Baby-eating plays well in the heartland), he gets those electoral votes by means of choosing electors from his party to represent his wishes. Usually, being an elector is a kickback for contributions to the party's warchest. Think of it as slightly below being the Ambassador to Tahiti.
• TThe electoral college is a good thing. It means that the concerns and issues of states with smaller populations don't get ignored -- that smaller states don't get steamrolled by larger states. People often don't realize it unless they stop and really think about it, but in a country the size of the U.S., there are multiple cultures rather than a single national culture. If you're a rancher in Idaho (i.e. you live in a sparsely populated place, you "put down" sick or injured animals, your local law enforcement organization is located 40 miles from your home, you pay taxes but benefit relatively little from public works, etc.) you can quite understandably have a different opinion on things like gun control and the size/scope of the government than if, like me, you live in a big city and go to your office job via public transportation and count on the cops to keep you safe when you're on the streets after dark.
• Doing things by congressional district is no good, since congressional districts get restructured by the parties in power to their own advantage, quite routinely. Happens on both sides, and is a subversion of democracy, imo.
• iguanapolitico, Remember also that there are scads and scads of things that affect Americans that get decided/executed not by the president, but by someone he has appointed -- directly or indirectly. These seemingly little things have big impact when you add them all up ... IT policy, farm assistance, labor standards, aviation, science policy, influenza vaccine, etc. Congress holds dozens of hearings every day on the minutiae of managing a government/nation. There's a lot of stuff going on that bores most Americans, or that never gets on the mainstream radar screen. (Yeah, as a farmer, I might read about a big personal issue in "Podunk Farm Journal," but you won't.) What we hear about, though, is only the "big, sexy" stuff -- war and taxes. I urge you not to judge a candidate based solely on those two big issues. There are scores and scores of smaller issues that add up and become of equal or greater importance -- because when the body count is all done, perhaps as many people will have died from bad labor/health/research/etc. policy as from a war. (If, that is, your way of judging success or failure is body count.)
• A candidate can win with only 27 percent of the popular vote. (Sorry, self-link)
• Plutor - awesome; you've saved me some number-crunching. Yesterday I started calculations on determining the smallest popular vote % a candidate could receive and still win the election ... today I'll just trust your numbers. Possum - agreed. The tax/war situations don't even offend me that much (not going to derail, though), but the war situation alone is enough to get lots of people to vote for Kerry. (Not. Going to derail. Though! Oops.) Nal - I need to go back and study your argument about the real world system. May post again later (once everybody has forgotten about this thread, I'm sure). Meanwhile, rest assured that I am voting. :)
• One of my favorite essays on the electoral college is buried in that web site Warrior linked to: Math against tyranny it attempts to thoroughly trace the math involved to see exactly what the benefits of the e.c. system are. It is long and was written around the time of 1996 election - but I think well worth the read.
• i support the EC just because while 50% of US pop. is in metropolitan areas there is another side with entirely different issues but the manipulation of votes toward the electoral college rarely make the light of day because it's easier to squash a bug before it gets really big and scary.
• the manipulation of votes toward the electoral college What does this mean? (While we're at it, what does the manipulation of votes toward the electoral college rarely make the light of day because it's easier to squash a bug before it gets really big and scary? mean?)