This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on September 25, 2008.
Back to (Electoral) College
Every four years, we Americans go back to college - the Electoral College. The Electoral College is important because despite conventional wisdom, it is not presidential candidates that we will vote for in November but instead the members of this exclusive college.
Officially, the President is chosen not by the people but by the states, and each state has as many votes as it has members of Congress. All states get at least three electoral votes - one for each Senator and Representative. Vermont, then, only gets three. California, by contrast, has 55.
These elector counts are how commentators can tell you how many electoral votes a candidate needs to win the election. There are 100 Senators and 435 Representatives in Congress, for a total of 535 electoral votes. Add three more for Washington, D.C., for a total of 538. You need half plus one to win outright, or 270.
It is these electors you are selecting when you cast your ballot in November, not the exact candidate, though each political party chooses its electors. In most states, including Vermont, the slate of electors that garners the most votes will vote in the Electoral College. The electors from the other parties get to watch from home like the rest of us.
After the electors all vote, the votes are bundled up and mailed off to Congress, where they are eventually opened and tallied, and a winner is officially declared.
This year, Election Day falls on November 4. Elector Day, when the electors gather in their state capitals to cast their votes, is December 15. Finally, the Congress will count the votes on January 6.
Most of this process is pro forma after Election Day. Though electors are not technically bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to, they almost always do; and unless an elector goes against the grain, the reading of the votes in Congress is no surprise.
Why so convoluted a system? Why do we not just vote for the presidential candidate directly? The answer goes back to the great compromises the Framers made when they wrote the Constitution back in 1787.
The Electoral College does a few things. The biggest effect it has is to protect the smaller states, like Vermont, from the whims of the larger states. For one thing, large-state favorite sons can only get as many electoral votes as their state has; for another, because of equal suffrage in the Senate, smaller states have disproportionately large voting power in the College.
Another effect is our quadrennial reminder of the power of representative democracy. Just as we elect Senators and Representatives to weigh our demands with those of the nation, we elect electors to weigh our vote with the choices available. Even if the Electoral College always ends up voting as expected, there is always that slim possibility they could change their collective mind.
I have vacillated on the issue of the Electoral College over time, from supporter, to detractor, to compromiser.
As a resident of a small state, I am happy that my vote counts for more than a New York vote or a California vote. I am, however, uncomfortably happy, this being the equivalent of electoral schadenfreude.
The populist idea is a straight national popular vote. After the election debacle of 2000, I cringe, though, at any national plan. If there is dispute about the national vote, do we mandate Florida-style recounts in all 50 states? Would this grind the process to a halt?
Undoubtedly we could work something out, where recounts are by precinct or district or state, but still the prospect of needing a national recount is plausible. At least with the Electoral College as it is now, a recount in New York or New Hampshire does not necessitate a recount here.
A promising compromise is an interstate compact whereby, once enough states to total 270 or more electoral vote have signed on, those states would change their laws to select the slate of electors for the winner of the national vote, regardless of the state vote.
In any case, it is too late for change now, so the Electoral College process is going to go forward at least one more time. So, revel in our little electoral idiosyncrasy, and as homework, try to find out the names of the electors you'll be voting for when you cast your vote on Election Day.
Friday, September 26, 2008
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2 comments:
The small states are the most disadvantaged of all under the current system of electing the President. Political clout comes from being a closely divided battleground state, not the two-vote bonus.
Small states are almost invariably non-competitive in presidential election. Only 1 of the 13 smallest states are battleground states (and only 5 of the 25 smallest states are battlegrounds).
Of the 13 smallest states, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Alaska regularly vote Republican, and Rhode Island, Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, and DC regularly vote Democratic. These 12 states together contain 11 million people. Because of the two electoral-vote bonus that each state receives, the 12 non-competitive small states have 40 electoral votes. However, the two-vote bonus is an entirely illusory advantage to the small states. Ohio has 11 million people and has "only" 20 electoral votes. As we all know, the 11 million people in Ohio are the center of attention in presidential campaigns, while the 11 million people in the 12 non-competitive small states are utterly irrelevant. Nationwide election of the President would make each of the voters in the 12 smallest states as important as an Ohio voter.
The fact that the bonus of two electoral votes is an illusory benefit to the small states has been widely recognized by the small states for some time. In 1966, Delaware led a group of 12 predominantly low-population states (North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Utah, Arkansas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania) in suing New York in the U.S. Supreme Court, arguing that New York's use of the winner-take-all effectively disenfranchised voters in their states. The Court declined to hear the case (presumably because of the well-established constitutional provision that the manner of awarding electoral votes is exclusively a state decision). Ironically, defendant New York is no longer a battleground state (as it was in the 1960s) and today suffers the very same disenfranchisement as the 12 non-competitive low-population states. A vote in New York is, today, equal to a vote in Wyoming—both are equally worthless and irrelevant in presidential elections.
Even with a single pool of 122,000,000 votes, it is conceivable that the nationwide popular vote could someday be extremely close (say, a few hundred or a few thousand votes out of 122,000,000). In that event, the inevitable recount and controversy would be handled in the same way as its is currently handled—that is, under the generally serviceable laws that govern all elections. The guiding principle in such circumstances should be that all votes should be counted as fairly and expeditiously as possible.
In terms of logistics, the personnel and procedures for a nationwide recount are already in place because every state is always prepared to conduct a statewide recount after any election. Indeed, there are statewide recounts for certain statewide offices and ballot propositions in virtually every election cycle. As Senator David Durenberger (R–Minnesota) said in the Senate in 1979, "There is no reason to doubt the ability of the States and localities to manage a recount, and nothing to suggest that a candidate would frivolously incur the expense of requesting one. And even if this were not the case, the potential danger in selecting a President rejected by a majority of the voters far outweighs the potential inconvenience in administering a recount."
For more information related to the National Popular Vote interstate compact, see http://www.NationalPopularVote.com
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