November 6, 2012 - Election Day in the United States

nIt’sntime, once again, to think about the electoral college.
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nPresidentsnand their vice-presidential running mates are the only governmentalnofficials elected by the entire nation. Rather than just comparingnthe raw vote—how many people voted for this candidate compared tonhow many voted for that other candidate—candidates win thenelectoral votes of a particular state by winning the presidentialnelection in that state. It is the total number of electoral votes,nnot the total number of raw votes, that determines who wins andnbecomes president. n

nThisnmeans that, instead of winning one big national election, ansuccessful candidate must win many smaller state elections.

nStatesnwith small populations have a lot fewer electors than large statesnwith large populations. The number of electors of a particular statenis the number of senators from that state (and every state gets thensame number of senators—two) plus the number of representativesnfrom that state (which depends on the population).
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nSo Delaware andnAlaska have three electoral votes each, Texas has 38, and Californianhas 55 electoral votes. n

nWhynis the presidential election set up this way? Do you think thisnmethod is fair? Read on….

nWhynand when?

ThenFounding Fathers created the electoral college system in order tonmake sure that the large states wouldn’t have undue control over thenpresidential elections; another way of saying this is that thisnsystem was devised to safeguard the voice of the less populousnstates.

nThenfirst plan to elect U.S. presidents was to have Congress elect thenpresident. (This would be somewhat similar to the BritishnParliament/Prime Minister system.) However, some of the FoundingnFathers thought that the president wouldn’t have the proper amount ofnindependence from Congress—in other words, that the president wouldnbe under Congressional control. n

nThenFounding Fathers did briefly discuss the idea of direct election—eachncitizen voting for president directly, and the winner being the guyn(so far, it’s always been men!) with the most raw votes. JamesnMadison liked this idea but pointed out that southern statesnwouldn’t, because much of their population was made up of non-votingnslaves. A lot of compromise over slavery happened during the craftingnof the Constitution; it’s surprising that the document has served asnwell as it has, for as long as it has, with as few amendments as itnhas had, considering!

nNote:nthe Constitution refers to “electors” but not to the “electoralncollege.” The latter phrase began to be used in the early nineteenth century and appeared in written form in a federal law in 1845. n

nGoodnthings about the electoral college:

nInn a close election, a recount would have to happen with ALL then ballots in the whole nation, if we went by raw votes. With then electoral college, there is only a recount of votes in the reallyn close states. Recounts are expensive and time-consuming.

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nThen electoral college gives more influence to small states, with theirn different perspectives, and to rural areas than a raw vote countn would. It also gives a bit more influence to racial and ethnicn minorities, who often live in large cities in populous states andn who therefore can tilt all the electoral votes of those states. n

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nThen electoral college system tends to prevent candidates with onlyn regional support from winning.

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nThen electoral college system encourages stability through the two-partyn system. (Only some people think this is a good thing!)

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nAnnanalogy…

nWhatnif the World Series of baseball was decided by the raw total of allnthe runs made in all the games of the Series?

nLet’s say that thenGiants won six out of seven games but totaled only 10 runs in allnseven games. If the Tigers had one freaky game in which they scored 7nruns, and won that one game—would it be a good thing if the Tigers endednup winning the whole series with 11 total points, even though they lost six games and only won one?

nInnsports, we almost always have a series of small competitions addingnup to a large win. A tennis player doesn’t win a match becausensomeone tallied up all the points she made in a match, and comparednthat tally to her opponents. Instead, she has to win more sets thannher opponent (and to win a set, she must win more games).

nBadnthings about the electoral college system:

nCandidatesn tend to focus on large swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvanian and Ohio, almost ignoring states with few electoral votes or statesn that are “safe” for a particular party.

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nThen electoral college system to some extent discourages voter turnout.n However, since there are other offices and propositions in any givenn election, apathy and non-participation seems to me to be a problemn largely separated from the whether we use direct voting or then electoral college.

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It’sn an unnecessarily complicated system. Many people think that one citizen-one vote makes more sense.

Some people think that some of the things on the “good” list above are really bad. For example, some people don’t like the fact that the current system favors less populous and more rural states. Some argue that the system makes disadvantages third parties, but others claim that the electoral college system actually improves chances of third-party candidates in some situations.

nVotern suppression (passing state laws that make it harder for some peoplen to vote) isn’t punished by our electoral college system. However, an direct-vote system wouldn’t help fight against voter suppressionn efforts, either….

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nTonlearn more…