Flunking Electoral College
With polls once again showing an extremely close race for the Presidency, I’ve seen a few articles lately discussing the possibility of another “misfired” election – that is, one where the winner of the popular vote loses the electoral vote. Tom Schaller, in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, poses a scenario where that could happen to Bush, who could plausibly narrow his losses in the big states where he got trounced by Gore in 2000, but lose a small Red state or two (say, Nevada and/or New Hampshire), and thus the election. Of course, having spent the past four years telling Democrats to “get over it,” I am sure our Republican friends would set new standards of grace in defeat should that outcome take place.
What seems more likely to me is that the blue states get bluer and the red states get redder. That is, we get the same kind of result as in 2000, with a wider victory for Bush in the electoral college because of demographic shifts since the census. But because blue states are more populous, it is conceivable that Kerry could rack up a popular vote margin of 2-3 million (out of some 54-55 million likely votes cast), perhaps even claiming an outright majority of over 50%, while still losing the Presidency.
Should such a thing ever happen to any candidate, Democrat or Republican, it would be a disaster for America at home and abroad. To most people, “democracy” means “majority rules.” The electoral system is a bizarre novelty of our Constitution, introduced for reasons peculiar to the circumstances of the 18th century post-Colonial era. It’s a very tough thing to explain. Even the French system, with its multiple rounds and runoffs, eventually chooses a victor on the basis of votes cast at the polls. It will be very hard for the United States to go around the world talking about the virtues of popular rule if we have two successive elections where the candidate who got fewer votes ends up taking office.
The reasons why there is a joker in the American electoral deck are well known. States are represented in the Electoral College by the total of their representation in Congress (allocated by population, with a minimum of one) and the Senate (always two). When you divide the state population by the number of electors, the results vary enormously from state to state. This means that a small state like Wyoming, with three electoral votes, is significantly over-represented, while a mid-sized state like Michigan is under-represented. Since there are more small states who enjoy disproportionate power, both electorally and legislatively, it hardly seems likely that we will ever do away with the system by the means necessary – that is, Constitutional amendment.
A good Madisonian would also add that the current system is distorted by design, to provide a necessary counterweight for rural populations. Without the electoral college, it is entirely possible to envision a President winning by racking up huge majorities in every big city and losing almost everywhere else. Such a President, while popularly elected, would hardly be representative of the nation as a whole. And since big-city populations have historically tended to be more prone to electoral abuse and manipulation, the potential for mischief looms even larger.
There are solutions short of scrapping the entire system. One elegant way to solve the problem might be to allot a 50 electoral vote bonus to the winner of the popular vote. This would be enough to tip the balance in a close race and ensure majority rule in almost every case, but it would not necessarily serve to dilute the votes of small state voters. For example, if a candidate won the popular vote by dint of huge margins in 6 or 7 of the largest states but lost big nearly everywhere else in the country, even a 50-vote bonus would not be enough to reverse the electoral defeat of a candidate with such limited geographic appeal.
As a final benefit, the electoral bonus would conclusively mitigate against the disruptive influence of fringe third-party Presidential candidates in national elections, while making possible a major third-party challenge from a truly popular candidate. It would force on ideological insurgents the discipline of building a movement from the ground up – legislatively or through State and local races – or attempting to persuade the majority of people within one of the major political parties to adopt their views. At the same time, it could propel a candidate capable of garnering a plurality of 34-36% of the vote in an evenly-divided three-way contest into the White House without the need to carry the commensurate number of electoral votes state-by-state.
It’s not too early to be thinking about this. As we approach another extremely close Presidential election, our strange and complicated system again threatens to collapse like rotten timber under our feet. In the words of John Edwards, “friends, it doesn’t need to be that way.” Hopefully it won’t take another electoral calamity to instill the wisdom of reform.
9:21:42 AM 
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