Reforming the Electoral College
Written by Brian on December 15, 2008 – 8:46 pm -
The Electoral College. That wonderful American institution, seemingly so obtuse that it should be related to Germany’s Bundestag.
In actuality, it’s fairly simple if you take a moment to look at how it works. Yet, it never fails to prompt students to throw out comments like, “That’s not fair!” “Our votes don’t count!” and “They just cheat anyway!”
Analyzing Proposed Election Reforms
While teaching the Constitution – and election politics – I like to throw in a little investigation of the Electoral College. Another day, I’ll write up the entire lesson, but it basically asks the students to look at the 2000 Presidential Election and to determine if there was a more fair way to distribute the electoral votes.
The problem at the core of the issue is that electoral votes are distributed winner-take-all, so there’s really no guarantee that the person who won the electoral vote also won the electoral college. In fact, if you browse through past electoral maps, you’ll see a lot of cases in which the proportion of the electoral vote is nowhere near the proportion of the popular vote.
A couple years ago, some California Republicans concocted a plan to split its massive amount of electoral votes along Congressional districts. As long as California was the only state to adopt such a measure, it would effectively hamstring any future Democratic candidates.
The Republican candidate could count on getting easy votes from all the Red states, and he could also steal a few of California’s 55 votes from the Democratic candidate. Based on the current layout of California’s Congressional districts, those “few” votes would probably amount to about 19 votes.
This gave me the idea for the lesson – to have the students do a kind of experiment. Split the electoral votes in some states, but not all. What happens if all the Democratic states split their votes? What happens if all the Republican states split their vote?
The result, in either case, is a lopsided victory for the opposition.
Wrapping It Up: Creative Solutions
Now, I’ve got a nifty little article to have the students read at the end. There was an Op Ed in today’s NY Times about the Electoral College.
Originally, I thought the author was going to support that same California plan – which alone is a pretty shoddy idea. It turns out that Randall Lane has a pretty creative idea though: states from opposite sides of the political aisle pair up and enact this legislation together.
For example, New York and Texas have roughly the same number of electoral votes. If both of them passed a law that split their electoral votes according to Congressional districts, it wouldn’t give (much of) an advantage to either Republicans or Democratics. It would, however, greatly increase the value of campaigning in those two states.
The point of my original lesson was to open students ideas to the fact that some ideas may sound good and fair – like the California plan – but they are designed to break the system. The Lane article provides a nice wrap up. It validates the students’ findings in the activity, while also providing a creative alternative.
Of course, this doesn’t solve the problem of gerrymandering… so maybe we’re just trading one abusive system for another.
Posted in Teach Them Well, Topics and Issues | 3 Comments »
Tags: Politics
Find that post enjoyable or informative? Why don't you subscribe to the feed for Teach Them Well. Or, subscribe to the site-wide feed and catch up on all my antics.
The major shortcoming of the current system of electing the President is that presidential candidates concentrate their attention on a handful of closely divided “battleground” states. 98% of the 2008 campaign events involving a presidential or vice-presidential candidate occurred in just 15 closely divided “battleground” states. Over half (57%) of the events were in just four states (Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and Virginia). Similarly, 98% of ad spending took place in these 15 “battleground” states.. Similarly, in 2004, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their money and campaign visits in five states and over 99% of their money in 16 states. Two-thirds of the states and people have been merely spectators to the presidential elections. Candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, organize, campaign, or worry about the voter concerns in states where they are safely ahead or hopelessly behind. The reason for this is the winner-take-all rule enacted by 48 states, under which all of a state’s electoral votes are awarded to the candidate who gets the most votes in each separate state.
Another shortcoming of the current system is that a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in one of every 14 presidential elections.
In the past six decades, there have been six presidential elections in which a shift of a relatively small number of votes in one or two states would have elected (and, of course, in 2000, did elect) a presidential candidate who lost the popular vote nationwide.
The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
Every vote would be politically relevant and equal in presidential elections.
The bill would take effect only when enacted, in identical form, by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes—that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538). When the bill comes into effect, all the electoral votes from those states would be awarded to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC).
The bill is currently endorsed by 1,246 state legislators — 460 sponsors (in 47 states) and an additional 786 legislators who have cast recorded votes in favor of the bill.
The National Popular Vote bill has passed 22 state legislative chambers, including one house in Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, North Carolina, and Washington, and both houses in California, Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont. The bill has been enacted by Hawaii, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland. These four states possess 50 electoral votes — 19% of the 270 necessary to bring the law into effect.
See http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
Dividing a state’s electoral votes by congressional district would magnify the worst features of our antiquated Electoral College system of electing the President. What the country needs is a national popular vote to make every person’s vote equally important to presidential campaigns.
If the district approach were used nationally, it would less be less fair and accurately reflect the will of the people than the current system. In 2004, Bush won 50.7% of the popular vote, but 59% of the districts. Although Bush lost the national popular vote in 2000, he won 55% of the country’s congressional districts.
The district approach would not cause presidential candidates to campaign in a particular state or focus the candidates’ attention to issues of concern to the state. Under the winner-take-all rule (whether applied to either districts or states), candidates have no reason to campaign in districts or states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In North Carolina, for example, there are only 2 districts the 13th with a 5% spread and the 2nd with an 8% spread) where the presidential race is competitive. In California, the presidential race is competitive in only 3 of the state’s 53 districts. Nationwide, there are only 55 “battleground” districts that are competitive in presidential elections. Under the present deplorable state-level winner-take-all system, two-thirds of the states (including North Carolina and California and Texas) are ignored in presidential elections; however, seven-eighths of the nation’s congressional districts would be ignored if the a district-level winner-take-all system were used nationally.