There are stupid ideas and then there’s this.
President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton are among the politicians whose past criticisms of the Electoral College system would draw new scrutiny if there is a split verdict in this year’s presidential election.
National and swing state polls suggest it’s possible Republican Mitt Romney could win this year’s popular vote while Obama triumphs in the Electoral College — potentially marking the second time the rare split in outcomes has occurred in the last 12 years.
The last time it happened was in 2000, when Democratic candidate Al Gore won the popular vote but lost where it mattered. George W. Bush won Florida’s disputed recount, propelling him to 271 electoral votes — one more than he needed to take the White House.
The outcome triggered an intense — if shortlived — debate over reforming the Electoral College. Today, lawmakers in Washington are no closer to agreeing on whether to change the rules of how someone wins the presidency.
Here’s a snapshot of where top lawmakers have came down on a controversial issue that’s once again in the political spotlight.
Why is this so stupid?
Well, to begin with, we’ve only had one candidate win the electoral college while another won the popular vote 4 times in history: In 1824, 1876, 1888 and in 2000. Even if we were to roll snake eyes and it happened again this year, odds are it probably wouldn’t happen again for another 50-100 years.
Additionally, think about what it would mean in practical terms — campaigning across all fifty states. That might sound appealing if you’re in a non-competitive state today, but first of all, it would tend to mean that the candidates would ignore the smaller states in order to campaign in the larger states. But, the state of politics being what it is, the campaigns would eventually want to cover all 50 states. A practically unlimited amount of money, staffs, and campaigning would be needed for campaigns like that. We’re already going to see 1.5 to 2 billion dollars spent on this year’s election. If we moved from 11 swing states to all 50 states being in play, the amount of time and treasure needed to adequately campaign would become practically infinite.
However, here’s the real issue: If we have one of those once in a blue moon elections, where there’s a split between who wins the popular vote and electoral college, currently it comes down to one state. So, we end up having a dogfight over Florida or Ohio. But, let’s say the popular vote is the determining factor. Suddenly, ALL FIFTY STATES become important. In other words, what happened in Florida in 2000 would have happened in ALL FIFTY STATES if the popular vote had been the determining factor.
Why would any sane person want to live that nightmare?
It’s not only that, but the idea that this is supposed to be a constitutional republic. We are not one body of people ruled by one federal government (or we’re not supposed to be). We were envisioned to be 50 separate sovereign states ruled loosely by one federal government. Actually, who gets elected POTUS is supposed to matter to the individual American far, far less than who gets elected our state’s governor because the governor is supposed to have sort of power in our lives that the POTUS has now usurped. The POTUS’s job was more supposed to be to deal with foreign powers on behalf of the US and to keep the states playing nice, but he was supposed to be a very remote figure.
The reason we have the EC is because the people get a direct election component, sure, but we also get another direct election component in the election of our state Representatives (which in part determines our number of EC representatives), and our state government’s say was supposed to be represented by the Senators (also part of the EC total). Together, the two were supposed to reflect that both the people and their sovereign state governments were engaged in selecting the POTUS. It also blunts the tyranny of the majority that a pure democracy always devolves into (ask the Athenian Greeks about that one). Our Founders knew what they were doing.
I agree completely. I once made the same point myself: http://www.johansens.us/sane/politics/electoral.htm I think this is an often-ignored point.
The larger issue, and the reason we continually flirt with disbanding the Electoral College is that we long ago gave up the foundations of our Constitutional separations of governing responsibilities. It isn’t just the Seventeenth Amendment but that’s a good example.
When the Country was established it was thirteen sovereign colonies. When the Constitution was established it still maintained the sovereignty of the States and established a national government with limited powers that was expected to answer to the States, not directly to the People at large. The Senate was composed of delegates chosen by the States and the President was selected by electors chosen by popular vote but apportioned by state. the only popularly elected body was the House of Representatives. The States were meant to be run under democratic principals and the Federal Government was meant to answer to the States.
As we render the States to states and relegate them to mere chairs before the throne, the appendages of the Republic of States become anachronistic. Where citizens of States belonging to the Nation become citizens of the Nation living in states the anachronisms of the old Republic chafe and burn (Florida 2000).
If we wish to recapture the Federal Republic and respect for it’s moving parts we need, first, to replace the states to States and return the People to the citizenship of those States thereby returning the Federal Government to it’s place at the head of the States instead of it trying to be the head of the People.
The people pushing for the popular vote are the Democrats, because they believe the election process will come to be dominated by large urban areas, which they control. Why we would want to be controlled by the same people who gave us such wonderful examples of popular governance as Detroit, Chicago, and Washington, DC is another question entirely.
So, if I understand your commentary correctly, it would be a bad thing to do an election by popular vote because then all states would matter equally, not just the “swing states?” How this this a bad thing? This, combined with sensible campaign finance reform, sounds like a great thing to me. And yes, I think we should scrutinize the vote in every state, in every precinct, in every polling booth. We have the manpower, we have the technology.