My favorite paragraph:
[A proposed constitutional amendment in 1970] was the closest the U.S. has come to getting rid of the Electoral College, but serious reform discussions continued from the 1950s through the 1970s. The debates from then are enlightening, in part because the arguments are so different from those of today. (If you want even more depth on this topic, I recommend a 2001 article by legal scholar Ann Althouse titled “Electoral College Reform: Déjà Vu.”)Yes, it is a kick-ass article, reviewing 3 books from the early 70s, and the arguments against abolishing the Electoral College may amaze you.
Thanks to Fox for drawing attention to my article. I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
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154 comments:
I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
Don't you read your commenters? They're still not sure what happened during the Obama Administration.
I don't know about the seventies (although I was there) but the electoral college arguments have been going since Bush v Gore.
The only reason the left wants to abolish the Electoral College is because they think they can win that way. I don't think any of your scholarly books will present that argument.
"I don't know about the seventies (although I was there) but the electoral college arguments have been going since Bush v Gore."
That's why I wrote the article. The Bush Gore election had just happened. I went back to the history of reform after the 1960 election to learn from that unsuccessful effort. Why did it fail?! Don't redo failures! It failed for good reasons!
"The only reason the left wants to abolish the Electoral College is because they think they can win that way. I don't think any of your scholarly books will present that argument."
Please read the article before saying things like that. The books completely get into that sort of thing.
The Constitutional amendment that is most necessary is to set the US Supreme Court to nine justices.
------
The Electoral College saved the USA from a President Hillary Clinton.
The system worked!
A Constitutional amendment to set the US Supreme Court to nine justices should also limit the length of each justice's term.
Perhaps that amendment should also prevent a nomination of a new justice from being affected by bogus sexual-harassment accusations.
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I don't want to get in trouble for hijacking this thread, so I will add here that I am glad that Althouse was mentioned in that article.
I would not care to live in a country where the election was decided exclusively by who wins California and New York City.
The last time they had that animus was in 2004, then it receded till 2016.
New York City and California are the tits and ass of America. You should not let just tits and ass influence any important decisions. I think we can all agree on that.
I don't know if it would be enough to change things, but an elimination of the Electoral College would get a lot more Republicans and right-leaning independents to show up and vote in states where their vote isn't worth the time today.
Who the hell is this Althouse chick? Is she one of those people who got a thrill up her leg at the sight of a sharp pants crease?
This is the way that we should be using the internet to learn things we would not otherwise know and then try to apply them to the present day.
There should be a limit on Amendments - 5 per century. Amendments are like condiments.
I word-searched that Althouse article for "garner," and came up empty.
I'm disappointed the article didn't discuss the weeks leading up to the 2000 election, when some polls suggested Gore might lose the popular vote to Bush but still win the EC.
I remember reading several eloquent opeds in the democrat party media explaining how installing Gore as POTUS under these circumstances would be No Problem At All. But alas, those times have been airbrushed out of history.
The biggest reason that comes to mind for the Electoral College is the United States is not a Democracy and does not, nor ever has, operated by majority rule, mob rule, direct democracy, etc.
All of these principles are direct paths to government failure.
That trivial vestige of a mere 18th Century compromise is actually the Sine Qua Non of there being a Constitution of the United States of America. That made it possible then and nothing has changed. Un do it and you might as well throw out the rest of the Constitution.
Nationwide popular vote with a runoff of the two candidates with the most votes a week later. The winner would always have a majority of the vote. The two larger parties would still have an advantage and third-party candidates would have less power than they do now. There would be no way to play spoiler.
That's the best alternative I've been able to find. It does give a little more power to urban areas, but it also re-infranchises rural areas in heavily urban states. Think about living in upstate New York or the Central Valley of California. All of a sudden, your vote would matter again.
The big gain is it takes away the power of swing states. The ability of a few midwestern states to choose the last few Presidents is kind of strange if you think about it. How many elections have been decided by Ohio? How is that fair?
The Electoral College is a brake on electoral fraud. With it, you can only swing one state with fraud, which may do nothing to swing the election overall. Without it, a couple dirty counties can manufacture the votes to swing a close election.
I actually don't think a popular vote would change much if that were the rule beforehand. Seriously, how many Republicans don't bother voting in California or New York any longer? Am I really to believe that California registered voters favored Clinton 2 to 1? I would wager that, at best, the true bias in her favor would have been about 4 to 3 if everyone registered actually voted. If I lived in San Francisco for example, I would not take the time to vote since there is no vote I could give to any actual potential winner. At least when I lived in CT, there was a possibility that I might vote for a winning state rep/sen or even a winning US rep/sen.
Indeed, I think it quite possible and probable that a popular vote might actually favor the Republican candidate. Even in deep red states, Democrats are competitive as losing House and Senate candidates than the reverse in deep blue states. In other words, I think Republicans would net more presidential voters from deep blue areas than Democrats will from deep red ones.
My main objection to changing the electoral college, though, remains the same- I don't want the chaos that will be caused by a nationwide vote recount/challenge. The EC limits this shit to, at most, a couple of states at a time.
Fox is a good, veteran reporter, who writes often about matters few others pay much attention to.
"The 1970s called, they want their EC constitutional debate back."
About the only change you are likely to see, though, is this- awarding electoral votes based on Congressional district with two for each state going to the candidate who carried the entire state. In that case, Trump would have won 290 electoral votes rather than 306, but Romney would have defeated Obama in 2012. I don't think Democrats will like that, do you?
I think it's a pretty minor change as far as federalism and the constitution go. I don't think such a system would have changed the result of the last few elections. Even 2016 probably would have been won by Trump, because he understood the victory conditions and Hillary Clinton did not (the utter idiocy of the Clinton campaign strategy has been documented). Trump would have spent more time getting votes in NY and CA if he had needed them. As it was, he focused on the states he needed to win.
The current anti-EC movement is based on little more than slogans and means to an end. After all Bush won in 2000 and Trump in 2016 via the dreaded unfair EC.
Those with short and selective memories forget that a mere 60,000 votes flipped in Ohio in 2004 would have made John Kerry president, despite Kerry getting 2.9 million fewer votes than Bush nationwide.
But as this didn't happen, the EC exists in Democratic minds as a cheat code for Republican candidates. (It also has something to do with gerrymandered districts, apparently.)
I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
Because a lot of us live in Year Zero. Nothing thought by anyone before us could possibly have any relevance or value, and none of it could possibly have been anticipated.
...The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.
One possible Constitutional compromise would be to elect the President by popular vote, but on the condition that each African-American is counted as only 3/5 of a vote.
Well I'm bookmarking this and your other blog post, Althouse, for the idiots in my life who are advocating for the demise of the EC - or the stupid end around with the national popular vote state compact.
This is a perfect example of why I keep coming here - exposure to arguments, ideas, issues for which I need a greater understanding. And so I have a more effective club. :)
Thank you, Althouse.
"Please read the article before saying things like that. The books completely get into that sort of thing."
I read the article, but I agree with Unknown, the reason lefties want to change the rules is because they think it will put a Democrat in the White House. The baying started right after Trump won and hasn't stopped since. It's as simple as that. And the Democrat way.
A bunch of books prior to 2011 won't change that.
Splitting electoral votes within a state is a dumb, stupid, ridiculous move by liberal legislators.
It makes it much more likely an election will be thrown to the House of Representatives. This is because third-party candidates would be able to get electoral votes. The threshold for winning a district is much lower than winning a state. Once no party can get to 271, it goes to the House.
In the House, electing a president, each state delegation gets ONE vote. California's 51 reps get one vote. North Dakota's one rep gets one vote.
Even if one party controls the House the other party can still win.
How the hell is this more democratic?
So, the split by district electoral vote idea is stupid and headed for disaster.
I am not worried about this state compact shit, either. The very first time it seems to benefit a Republican candidate, the states will suddenly start withdrawing from it.
The electoral college has been characterized as a firewall, that empathizes with people, culture, and geography, and mitigates the progress of nationwide conflagrations. The left, for their part, believe that the population can be seeded (e.g. diversity) to force anthropogenic climate change.
“The Electoral College saved the USA from a President Hillary Clinton.”
I realize the comment is tongue in cheek, but I think it’s likely that if the presidency were decided by popular vote, Trump would have won the popular vote. Everything would have been different: the campaign strategies and the turnout patterns in particular.
The fact that the "liberal" Hive--the gang that wants to make a free society into a command society (in other words, the stupidest and most evil bunch in the US--wants to get rid of the Electoral College should alone give us pause.
Ironically, the best argument for the electoral college is the one that lots of people think is the best argument against it: the 2000 presidential election.
Gore's popular vote margin in 2000 was only 0.5%. In many states a margin that small in any election would trigger an automatic recount. Think about how awful the recount process was in Florida, and imagine that happening in every state across the country. We would be lucky to avoid civil war.
each African-American is counted as only 3/5 of a vote
Or 1/2, not limited to African-Americans, white, yellow, black, brown, or orange.
I wonder how many people hate the Electoral College at any give time.
The nationwide recount hell scenario is a good argument for keeping the College. So is the need to get votes nationwide, instead of being a regional party dominating the rest of the states.
Henry-
After you count the electoral votes, no one hates it.
There has never been a federal election. Why do we want one? The United States is based on Federalism. We are a group of sovereign states. Not a Nation without States. Why does anyone want to voluntarily give up the power the Constitution has defined for them?
ALL of the ills of Government in the United States would be solved of the States would take back the power that the Constitution enumerates to them. Empowering the people closest to the govt to control that government. It was designed specifically that the vast majority of govt would take place at the state an local level. Federal power is small, limited, and enumerated in the constitution.
This leaves the role of President, not near as powerful as it has become. With the ability of the people to quickly make a correction in Presidential selection in 4 years, with a chance in two years to yank control of the House of Representative away from the President in power, effectively neutering the President.
The People have a lot of power.
I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
Really? To them, history goes back only as far as last week.
I am not worried about this state compact shit, either. The very first time it seems to benefit a Republican candidate, the states will suddenly start withdrawing from it.
The first time a state sends its electoral votes to the loser in that state, there will be hell to pay.
“In 2012, Donald Trump said, "The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy. ... A total sham and a travesty."
On April 26, 2018, President Donald Trump told Fox & Friends that "I would rather have a popular election." Politico Video
Here's what Trump said to Lesley Stahl about the Electoral College and a national popular vote for President on Sixty Minutes on November 13, 2016:
Stahl: Now for months you were running around saying the system is rigged. The whole thing was rigged. You tweeted once that the Electoral College is a “disaster for democracy.”
Trump: I do.
Stahl: So do you still think it’s rigged?
Trump: Well, I think the Electoral College. Look I won with the Electoral College.
Stahl: Exactly. But do you think it’s rigged?
Trump: Yes. Some of the election locations are. Some of the system is. Ah.
Stahl: Even though you won, you’re saying that.
Trump: Well, I mean, I’m not going to change my mind just because I won. But I would rather see it, where you went with simple votes. You know, you get 100 million votes, and somebody else gets 90 million votes, and you win. There’s a reason for doing this. Because it brings all the states into play. The Electoral College. And there’s something very good about that. But this is a different system. But I respect it. I do respect the system.
Although Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton rarely agree, Clinton said in 2000,
"I believe strongly that in a democracy, we should respect the will of the people … and move to the popular election of our president.”
https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/president-trump-reaffirms-his-long-standing-opposition-electoral-college-and-favors-nationwide-vote
So what, Inga? Trump is just wrong, which shouldn't come as a surprise to you.
State compacts can be broken. If a state votes R, then its electors are R. They will vote R. The state can't make them vote D. The state can try, but the courts won't buy it.
If you tried to say the electors are D, there's no legal or constitutional way to do that. If a majority of the votes in the state were for R, how can the elector slate be from the opposite party?
Dumb idea. Juat amend the damn federal constitution. It's a federal election, so it should be decided at the federal level.
Really interesting article (though I still need to carve out some time to read the referenced piece by our host). I especially find relevant the discussion of whether eliminating the EC would have changed the outcome of any elections. Also interesting to note that the Electoral College outcome contradicted the popular vote just three times in the 58 (?) presidential elections in our history; so there's not much justification for changing the system.
Not discussed is the likely change in voting behavior if we went to a national vote: I didn't vote for POTUS the past few elections because I live in Massachusetts which was never going to go for a non-Democrat and I don't vote Democrat. My vote for someone else just doesn't matter here. Eliminating the EC would change that. Let's also dig deeper into how the candidates would change their approach - flyover country would likely never see the candidates in person, just the occasional tweet and other media outreach. Would primaries even be necessary? Just go back to having the parties choose their candidates directly.
Stop with the facts, Inga... you are making the deplorables come out of Shavasana and bend themselves into Gumbyasana.
iowan2 said, "There has never been a federal election. Why do we want one? The United States is based on Federalism. We are a group of sovereign states. Not a Nation without States."
Exactly. We don't have a single Presidential election. We have FIFTY separate STATE elections, with the winner of each state earning that state's electoral votes. Running up the margin of victory by a few million extra votes in, for instance, California, means absolutely--and it shouldn't. You either win each state, or you don't.
I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
They are almost entirely motivated by animosity to Trump. Their attack on the Electoral College is like their wish to impeach Trump. Oh yes, we love the Emoluments clause! We love the 25th Amendment! We must follow the Constitution and get rid of Trump.
I call bullshit on this attack on the Electoral college. It's made by people who just want to attack Trump and de-legitimize his election. If Hillary had won the electoral college and Trump had won the popular vote, we'd have all these damn articles warning us about the tyranny of the majority and how wise the Framers were to create an Electoral College.
And we know this because these alleged "populists" and "democrats" love Roe v. Wade. They love unelected people going into a room and establishing new law by fiat. They are totally on board with anti-democracy. They use the Constitution if it's helpful to them and attack it if it's not. They make shit up in the name of the Constitution. They are very, very, very flexible when it comes to their own side and their own arguments. And they are rigid and harsh when talking about anybody in a red shirt.
Good article, by the way. I liked this bit...
After the 2000 election, one heard surprisingly little expression of alarm or outrage that the electoral vote allocation caused the loser of the popular vote to win. Though Al Gore usually inserted the fact of his popular victory in his various public statements, he used it as a background justification for pursuing the Florida recount. Clearly, the foreground principle was counting every vote in Florida, not counting every vote in the nation equally. Longley and Braun asserted that people voting for a President think they are voting in a single national election and that the actual plan used should reflect what people believe they are doing. But the aftermath of the 2000 election demonstrated just how well people understood that they were voting in fifty-one concurrent elections that would be aggregated according to an eighteenth-century scheme. The nation understood three hundred votes in Florida to be more significant than a half-million votes nationwide. Appeals to principle stressed not that existing rules of allocating voting power were wrong, but that the rules needed to be scrupulously followed. The two sides had plenty of disagreement over exactly what the specific rules for counting votes in Florida were, and everyone recognized that the machinery for casting votes needed fixing, but there was widespread acceptance of the structure of the electoral college…
Yes. I think there are a few elites who feel very strongly about majority rule and direct democracy. But, ironically, the vast majority of Americans do not feel strongly about this. We perceive the Electoral College as the way this particular game is played. So if these elite professors (like Amar, who I love!) are truly majoritarian and populist, they ought to accept the majority's view. Not try to foist their elite opinions on all the rest of us.
John Lynch wrote:
"State compacts can be broken. If a state votes R, then its electors are R. They will vote R. The state can't make them vote D. The state can try, but the courts won't buy it."
The states can and will assemble the slate of electors sent to D.C. to cast their votes. As it stands today, each candidate nominates a slate of actual people as their electoral representatives, and the slate that goes to D.C. in December, by each state's own laws, is the one representing the candidate that won the popular vote in the state. However, under the compact, the state laws will be changed so that the state chooses to send the electors of the whichever candidate carried the national vote. Of course, it doesn't end there- electoral slates can be challenged in the House which must confirm the EC members and their votes.
The Electoral College appears to have held up well for 230 years under widely varying circumstances regardless of what it originally was supposed to do.
It may just happen to have been an accidentally good idea for still unknown reasons.
Whatever, but if the system is to be changed, it should be by one of the Constitutionally required procedures for passing an Amendment and a full public discussion. Any attempt at making an end run around the Constitution as it stands should be staunchly resisted.
Everything would have been different: the campaign strategies and the turnout patterns in particular.
That's what people who support eliminating the EC don't understand. The entire campaign would be run differently because the goals have changed.
campy,
"I'm disappointed the article didn't discuss the weeks leading up to the 2000 election, when some polls suggested Gore might lose the popular vote to Bush but still win the EC."
I remember. A dear friend concluded an e-mail during those weeks with, "Thank God for the Electoral College, is all I can say." Turned on a dime after the results were the inverse to what she'd expected: undemocratic, outdated holdover, and so forth.
James K:
"if the presidency were decided by popular vote,...[e]verything would have been different: the campaign strategies and the turnout patterns in particular."
And this is what so many people forget when they fulminate about the national popular vote: It's the score to a game no one was playing. People would indeed campaign very differently if we made this change.
“I call bullshit on this attack on the Electoral college.”- Saint Croix
“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy. ... A total sham and a travesty."-Trump 2012
"I would rather have a popular election."-Trump 2018
So Inga, your argument is that if Trump dislikes the electoral college and prefers a popular election, he is right and that settles it?
Or is your argument just, And isn't it ironic...dontcha think?
The electoral college is a significant barrier to voting fraud. There are many places across the country where vote fraud is occurring, and some of these places, like Chicago, are notorious.
Despite the possibility that a significant percentage of the Chicago 'vote' each election may be invented by the Democratic Party, the worst consequence of that for a presidential election is that Illinois may falsely 'vote' for the Democratic presidential candidate. But now matter how extreme the vote fraud in Chicago, real voters don't have their votes nullified outside of Illinois.
Vote fraud in Illinois makes a mockery of democracy in Illinois, but it doesn't cross over and wipe out democracy in Iowa.
2021: Eliminate the EC!
2022: Florida allows non-citizen residents to vote
2024: Senator Rick Scott handily beats Senator Harris
2026: California lowers the voting age to 16.
2028: Governor Newsome by 4 million votes (the number of 16-17 year olds).
2030: Texas Lowers the voting age to zero
2032: Governor Abbot beats incumbent Newsome with 26 million votes from Texas
2034: Kentucky gives each citizen one presidential vote in each of the 120 counties
2032: President Cocaine Mitch wins with 200 million votes from Kentucky
2034: Utah lowers the voting age to conception and structures tax breaks for invitro embryonic storage.
2036: Senator Mike Lee handily wins the Presidentcy with 1 billion votes.
2040: Minnesota allows for same day voter registration and 50000 people come over the state line with no verifiable address and vote for Hillary Clinton.
There.
There is your example case of why the electoral college is a good thing.
The EC cannot possibly be changed or eliminated in the next 25-years, so all this blather is a mute point.
JFK was all FOR keeping the Electoral College.
Put that on your plate.
You cannot eliminate the Electoral College without also nationalizing all voting standards. Right now, California allows illegals to vote, or at least turns its head and "doesn't notice." That, of course, is central to Democrat strategy: let all the illegals vote, numerous times if possible, and then that is the "popular vote."
Right now, that damage is limited to one state: it doesn't matter how many millions of extra votes Democrats manufacture in California; they are useless to counter votes in North Dakota or Wyoming. And that is how it should be: people are entitled to not live underneath Democrat Dictatorships which are "elected" by falsifying votes and manufacturing them, just like Iran or the Soviet Union. People forget that the Soviet Union "elected" their leaders as well; with like 98 or 99% of the vote... the same kind of vote totals that come out of Democrat party strongholds.
I'm sure Inga and Howard will tell us how we need to run America like that, with 99% vote totals for Democrats. So we can be more like the Soviets!
--Vance
It's not clear to me how the compact would work if there were no clear winner of the popular vote. The compact states presumably would have no means by which to trigger a national recount, including recounts in states not belonging to the compact. And, under Bush v. Gore, those states would need to have statutes already on their books (well in advance of the election) addressing how to award the electoral votes in the case of such an ambiguity.
Mandrewa,
"Vote fraud in Illinois makes a mockery of democracy in Illinois,"
Like the old joke (which I may have read here) where we lend some surplus Chicago voting machines to the Soviets, and they tally the votes to find Mayor Daley elected to the Presidium.
You also must then be required to eliminate the entire Senate in order to eliminate the EC.
Trump and the Democrats are wrong.
Yes - they are.
Why did it fail?! Don't redo failures! It failed for good reasons!
Why did it fail?! Racism.
And we're not going to let racism stop us this time.
There, that's all you need to get people riled up and on the path to national moral cleansing in 2019.
Just say the reason anything failed in the past has to do with white privilege.
Inga, that doesn't surprise me. Trump's a populist.
" I think it quite possible and probable that a popular vote might actually favor the Republican candidate."
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh......... They never think this shit through, becuase that's just the way progressivism rolls. Change, becuase the past is bad and worse than the unknown.
1 in 8 people in the US, LIVE in California.
The corruptocrat party - they want your vote be the same as everyone in CA. It's that simple.
Hillary won 3+ million more votes in CA - and that is why the left are determined to hand all smaller states votes to CA.
Why would people who attempted a coup care about "reasons"?
If the coup matters, the specious "arguments" put forward by the left in bad faith don't matter; giving the left any credence after they tried to destroy Trump and the system means the coup means nothing.
When Tank lived in NJ he voted libertarian BECAUSE voting Rep was futile.
""I would rather have a popular election."-Trump 2018".
He's trolling you, AGAIN.
He would love to win by popular vote the next time, but what would you say then? Don't bother, we know.
Althouse, you mention “one man, one vote” approvingly in your article. Do you still feel that way? For my money that was a slide down the slippery slope. TSCOTUS saw fit to reserve a republic structure for the national government and mandated a democratic structure for the States. I believe this was a direct attack on the little sovereignty reserved to the People.
Howard said...
Stop with the facts,
It's revealing our leftists don't know the difference between facts and opinions.
The easy to demagogue Slaves only count 3/5s was to stop the Democrat southern slaves states from using the blacks to multiply. Their power is the House. It seems Democrats took the slaves for granted.
Fox saysTrump was “self nominated” and a demagogue.. I could swear there were primaries and a convention. Maybe Fox didn’t notice that.
As for demagogue, that’s in the eyes of the beholder. We haven’t had a more devious demagogue than Obama in my lifetime.
It would be interesting to watch how candidates campaign in a popular vote election.
Hillary Clinton, like her husband, didn’t get 50% of the vote.
The argument by progressives that someone who doesn’t get 50% of the vote should be president over someone who won the majority of electors isn’t persuasive.
Tilden had a stronger gripe than Hillary.
If there is a very close election, one would need to do a recount in every state, which would create all sorts of problems and heartache. Limiting the recount to Florida makes life a little more pleasant for the rest of us.
The best argument for the EC is that we are the United STATES. Not the United provinces, United counties or the United Kingdom.
The president presides over the states, not over the people.
The president should be elected by the States.
I am fine with the present system.
John Henry
So, Donald Trump favors the popular vote and we disagree with him.
We need to be better cultists.
You know Inga, we're not required to agree with Trump on everything and, given your opinion of him, it's funny that you're acting like doing away with the electoral college is a good idea.
The Electoral College may also be one of the things that make us do revolutions slowly.
France over the same time period has had two - or is it three? - monarchies, two empires, and are working on their fifth republic.
What if there is an irregularity in one state such that the total popular vote nationwide cannot be determined without a "do-over" election? Ayayayh!
With the Electoral College we can go ahead and inaugurate a new administration based on the EC vote and no excitement.
Inga...Allie Oop said...
“I call bullshit on this attack on the Electoral college.”- Saint Croix
“The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy. ... A total sham and a travesty."-Trump 2012
"I would rather have a popular election."-Trump 2018
Trump is wrong.
I know you are too stupid and too dishonest to understand why we support him.
But we don't fall for stupid shit like you do. People that voted for Trump are on average smarter than the people that voted for Hillary.
We can think critically.
Democrat voters cannot think critically.
It is just as simple as that.
Howard said...
Stop with the facts, Inga... you are making the deplorables come out of Shavasana and bend themselves into Gumbyasana.
And here comes Howard to underline my point.
He doesn't know the difference between a fact and a pile of verbal vomit.
Democrat voters are just dumb people who cannot think for themselves.
I have yet to see any argument to support eliminating federalism, ie, the Electoral Collage. This is basic constitution 101. By plan, Democrats that have run the Dept of education for decades, and for all of those decades gotten everything they desired, no longer teach civics in public schools. This is structured ignorance...for a reason.
My daughter came home from high school and asked my about my opinion of the EC. I said without thought, I did not have an opinion, I would just give her the facts. So I told her Federalism. She stared back blankly. I then asked why the interest? She said her history teacher told the class the EC was outdated and anti democratic. I told her to go back to her teacher and ask to explain why the EC was part of the constitution.
It went downhill from there.
Ignorance. The entire debate rests on the ignorance of those thinking the EC is outdated.
The electoral college is taking the hit for the idiot voter problem.
John Lynch said...
Splitting electoral votes within a state is a dumb, stupid, ridiculous move by liberal legislators.
Actually, it would more often lead to conservative victories.
If the Electoral College is abolished - by fair means or foul - I would expect the courts to step in and insist on uniform election rules across the country. There would also be a knife fight about the validity of the count in every state in every presidential election, and the Democratic Party will be most unhappy with these developments, I should think.
iowan2 said...
ALL of the ills of Government in the United States would be solved of the States would take back the power that the Constitution enumerates to them. Empowering the people closest to the govt to control that government. It was designed specifically that the vast majority of govt would take place at the state an local level. Federal power is small, limited, and enumerated in the constitution.
Overturning the evil Reynolds vs Sims decision would go a long way towards restoring sanity to government. Laws like NY's SAFE act would never be passed if rural districts had a say in making state law.
He really should have written legal scholar and influential blogger Ann Althouse.
Althouse,
Sorry, I went to read your paper and saw more footnotes than text, at least at the beginning. Forget it, Jake. It's academia.
Unless it addresses the effective nationalization of voting for ONE office, it will do nothing to convince me. Circa 1970, people believed in the possibility of ONE nation, one set of rules. Motor voter was barely on the radar. Aliens and felons voting not even considered a possibility. The country was a third smaller and had perhaps its highest percentage of native born citizens ever.
Today and then, California, for example, can set its voting rules however It wants within the constraints of the 14th amendment as interpreted by the Supreme Court. The worst done is to their own Senators and Congresspeople. Their representatives, their rules. Abolishing the electoral college and throwing the question of the presidency open to a national standard AND control would create a mosh pit of corruption in today's kaleidoscope of state by state election laws. The electoral college totals by state are indeed a firewall against interstate gaming of presidential voting.
"There would also be a knife fight about the validity of the count in every state in every presidential election, and the Democratic Party will be most unhappy with these developments, I should think."
The dem's winning record in such knife fights suggests otherwise.
When it comes down to it we cannot have a popular vote decide federal elections because California allows Mexico to vote in their elections.
Royal ass Inga:
Hey Trumpists, quit disagreeing with Trump.
Logic.
You're doing it wrong.
My Name Goes Here wins the thread.
Inga kisses the asses of her Democrat masters slavishly.
Serfs who are incapable of independent thought can't conceive that it is possible to generally like and support a politician without agreeing with everything he says.
Both very interesting, and in fact, I found your article to be a great complement and clearly a source for his. I'm going to quote you referencing Bickel from your article that the electoral college "has proven itself marvelously effective and adaptable." I think it continues to be just that.
If I'm not mistaken, the Founders also struggle mightily with the concept of the Electoral College, but made it clear that, whatever hybrid they moved toward, the one thing that could not be accepted was national direct vote. They had reasons that, I'm sure, fit their era. In our time, with the level of media manipulation of the populace, I see the electoral college as a breakwall against the tyranny of the majority (as Madison put it).
It seems to work, keeping things in check, and just for a bit longer, keeping us a nation. You want to see a split up country? Go National Direct Vote.
Some excellent questions raised here, one I hadn't really thought of before now- how would the compact states respond to a hung election where the margin was under 0.1%? I mean, seriously, if, for example, the Republican won by 0.05% nationally, isn't it likely the compact states themselves would file suit demanding a recount? What standing would they even have to sue anywhere but within their own borders and their own court system? Such a case would have to be immediately sent to SCOTUS if a court decides at all.
No, I will stick with what has worked pretty well for 220+ years.
Yancey Ward said...
Some excellent questions raised here, one I hadn't really thought of before now- how would the compact states respond to a hung election where the margin was under 0.1%? I mean, seriously, if, for example, the Republican won by 0.05% nationally, isn't it likely the compact states themselves would file suit demanding a recount? What standing would they even have to sue anywhere but within their own borders and their own court system? Such a case would have to be immediately sent to SCOTUS if a court decides at all.
No, I will stick with what has worked pretty well for 220+ years.
And when California or New York or Washington State or Illinois finds 15000 more votes for the democrat in the recount like they do every time and it swings the election I am sure we would all go right along with it because California's election system is so honest and trustworthy.
There would be a civil war at the first close election.
The people who run this show know this. The stupid tool democrat voters probably don't.
And, you seriously have no intellectual chops if your first reaction to an unwanted outcome is to try to change such long-standing rules.
Had Trump lost the 2016 election in the EC while winning the popular vote, my position would be exactly the same- I would have exactly the same worries about a national vote hung election.
remember in 2000, they were expecting w could win the popular vote, and gore the electoral one, which wasn't that crazy considering it hinged on florida, then in a split second they flipped making the popular vote sacrosanct, and bugliosi among others got a serious bout of bush derangement syndrome, over the supreme court affirming the relevant statutes,
Hillary's bone-headed campaign couldn't figure out how to win under the current rules, so naturally we have to change them. Many of those who favor ditching the Electoral College would do less so if they realized the change would not be retroactive to 2016.
Inga cutting and pasting stuff that accomplishes exactly opposite of what she thinks it will.
"Trumps against the EC"
This is so revealing. Leftist like Inga working their best strategies to separate President Trump from his voters. Treating President Trump like a politician, with political views, political motives, political positions.
President Trump is not a politician. President Trump is not a Republican, President Trump is not a Democrat. (actually policy wise closer to a Democrat)
Yet knowing all of this, the leftist keep insisting President Trump is something he has never been, nor ever acted like.
Whats that saying? repeating the same behaviors and expecting different results?
Really great article, Professor. Illuminating. I particularly liked the use of the phrase "supermajoritarian hoops". I tend to agree with the reformists of 1956, if I understood it correctly, but I'd go farther and do things how (I think) Nebraska does.
We should assign EV's by Congressional district, thus eliminating the unit rule, and assign the Two as the EV's are assigned now, to the winner of the statewide popular vote. This has the advantage of making each district count for roughly the same amount, but it does actually give a slight benefit to smaller states, as it's easier to pick up the extra two votes in those. It would also eliminate issues like what happened in Florida in 2000. Instead of caring about their 29 EV's, we would have only been caring about a handful of districts, and the Two for the state. I looked at that at the time, and Bush would have gotten to the requisite 270 EV's without having to worry about the southern Florida counties.
I have one final point. I didn't quite understand this sentence from your article:
Under what Longley and Braun call “seemingly the fairest”
method of calculating the number of votes for Kennedy in Alabama, one that deprives
him of credit for the votes cast for the unpledged electors, Nixon won the national
popular vote by 58,181 votes.
Long day and I'm tired. Maybe it will make more sense tomorrow.
I stick with my original statement though. This was quite informative. Thanks for sharing.
Several people have mentioned that the rules need to be the same in each state in order for this to be fair. Think about what states have latitude on: voter ID, early voting, voting by mail, requirements to qualify to be on the ballot, vote harvesting, etc..
As one example, imagine Howard Shultz only being on ballots on the coasts. He'd siphon away millions more Democratic votes than Republican. So the slates would have to be the same.
Again, everything has to be standardized to be fair. And I can't see who would decide what those standards would be-certainly not Congress.
Blogger Achilles said...He doesn't know the difference between a fact and a pile of verbal vomit.
We agree what vial chunks cums out of Trumps cocksucker.
Great article, thanks for the pointer.
Another (small) reason against a direct national vote: the possibility of disaster disenfranchising a significant number of voters. If the Constitution were amended to replace the EC with a direct national vote, the amendment would (among other things) also need to account for a major disaster striking a population center on or near election day. Otherwise you'd have thousands or millions of disenfranchised voters.
Under the existing Article II Section 1, however, in case of disaster the state legislature could step in with an alternate method of appointing electors. In this way, the EC acts as a failsafe.
That failsafe hasn't been needed in 230 years of course.
Saint Croix: If Hillary had won the electoral college and Trump had won the popular vote, we'd have all these damn articles warning us about the tyranny of the majority and how wise the Framers were to create an Electoral College.
Excellent point. You can tell the Left doesn't really believe what they are lecturing us about because
1) on Monday they are warning of the Rising Populism that put Trump in office
2) On Tuesday that are championing the Popular Vote.
Inga: “The electoral college is a disaster for a democracy" - Trump 2012
Deliberately so Inga. Do you know why?
There is a reason the Founders chose a Republican form of government over a Democracy.
Do you know why the Athenian Democracy fell?
Are you even aware that we are NOT a Democracy?
Try to do some critical thinking of your own. The sites you plagiarize won't cover this, so you're on your own here. Show us your worth....
Democracy is one tiny step above fascism.
We are a Constitutional Republic with democratic institutions.
Pure democracy will be the death of us. Which is what the modern democratics want - especially the ultimate governmetn whore- Bernie.
Whenever some Leftist starts yapping about "democracy" or "saving our democracy" or "strengthening our democracy," please advise him of a few things:
1. We live in Republic (not a pure democracy) and the US Constitution guarantees a Republican Form of Government. (see Art 2, Section 2)
"Section 4 - Republican Government. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."
2. The US Constitution is un-democratic
3. The Bill of Rights is totally un-democratic - it provides rights against majority rule.
4. The Electoral College is un-democratic - it protects small states from large states
5. The Senate is un-democratic - 2 Rhode Island Senators have equal voting strength as 2 Califormia Senators
6. The Supreme Court is un-democratic. Committee of 9 lawyers in robes.
7. Roe v Wade is un-democratic - takes the vote away from the people
8. Obergefell is un-democratic - takes the vote away from the people.
If these leftist morons, would learn basic civics in college rather than non-gender specific bathroom disengagement lectures, they'd be an informed citizenry.
Chris of Rights.
Yes, Nebraska stupidly divides its EC votes. An old line Dem from Lincoln (Diane Schlick) rammed it through the Unicameral. The GOP is so weak in the supposedly nonpartisan Unicameral that it can’t role this back.
It turns Omaha against the rest of the state. Nebraska is one state; not three congressional districts.
So. If Trump wins the popular vote in 2020, as I believe he will if he is still alive, will California give him all their electoral votes? Or will they find a way to weasel out of it?
Magic eightball suggests no.
Here’s my Bush v. Gore story. I worked at the same law firm when Ben Nelson ran for Governor of Nebraska. The Dem primary vote came in and Ben won by about 30 votes. His opponent hired consultants. The consultants just wanted to recount some counties.
The primary votes were submitted to the State Board of Canvassers and it refused to certify the vote. We filed an original action in the Supreme Court praying for a preemptory writ of mandamus. Our position was that it was a ministerial act and the Board had no discretion to refuse the vote counts from the 93 counties. The Nebraska Supreme Court just sat on it and eventually the other guy conceded. He couldn’t manufacture votes in honest Nebraska.
Flash forward to the Bush-Gore election. For some reason I was reading the NYT and the same guys we were opposite of in the Nebraska Dem party were representing Al Gore and were up to the same tricks.
Ben Nelson was now a Senator. I wrote a letter and hand delivered it to his mail box as we lived in the same Omaha neighborhood. I told him to come out against the dishonest recount Gore was running in FL. Being the good Dem that he was, Ben Nelson did nothing.
So David Boies was representing that matter
Narciso
Not the lawyers. Political consultants.
One John F. Banzhaf III, now a professor at George Washington University Law School, argued in 1968, “by forcing the citizens of each state to vote as a bloc, the system increases the voting power of the residents of the larger states.”
May I have that man's job? Because I know that the electoral college does no such thing: state law decides how the EC votes are assigned, and almost all of the states choose to give all the EC votes to the winner of the state's popular vote. Nothing about the Electoral College as stipulated in the federal constitution requires that.
Blogger BleachBit-and-Hammers said...Democracy is one tiny step above fascism. We are a Constitutional Republic with democratic institutions.
Pure democracy will be the death of us.
No, evolution is the death of you people #darwinwins
Good point ELC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faithless_elector
We agree what vial chunks cums out of Trumps cocksucker.
I don't think that you are cut out for this, Howie.
You come across as a miserably depressed and nasty person. I feel bad for you.
At least the idiot Inga seems to have some joy in life, particularly when she finds the right article to cut and paste.
This is *slightly* off topic. The popular vote compact that many states (New Mexico most recently) are trying to end run around the constitution stipulates that once enough states that comprise 270 electoral votes have passed it that their electoral votes are assigned to whomever wins the national popular vote.
the Constitution allows for any Senator and Representative (it takes one of each) to object to the electoral votes requiring their respective chambers to debate the proposition of rejecting those electoral votes outright.
Imagine a situation where someone (Trump) wins the popular vote and all of those states, like say California "assign" their electoral votes to Trump. Further assume he wins with 295 total electoral votes (Harris getting 243). On 04 JAN 20xx a Senator and a Representative from California both object to their own state's electoral votes and Pelosi and Schumer get their respective chambers to throw out California's 54 votes, and Harris wins with 243 electoral votes.
Far fetched? I think that the people advocating the hardest for the elimination of the EC will also work the hardest to break the system the very first time it does not give them the result they expect.
Thanks Franci!!
California [and other 'motor voter' states like WA] will continue to encourage non-citizens to vote and no one will stop them. This voter fraud concerns me more than the question of a popular vote vs. EC. And it should be more concerning because it affects not just the Presidential vote but the whole slate of offices and ballot measures.
I've been really dismayed by the way the anti-Electoral-College proponents of the Trump era act bumble about unaware of the arguments that were well-developed in the 1970s!
History begins anew every day for the Left.
It does give a little more power to urban areas,
The main cause of our republic's ills is the fact that urban areas have too much power. We need to start by overturning Baker V Carr and return redistricting to elected officials .
In the House, electing a president, each state delegation gets ONE vote. California's 51 reps get one vote. North Dakota's one rep gets one vote.
You also get corrupt political deals. I cite the elections of 1824 and 1876.
Chris of Rights,
In the Alabama presidential election, there were 22 slots in the ballot for electors- 11 pledged to Nixon and 11 for the Democrats, but after the Democratic Primary, only 5 of the Democratic electors were pledged to Kennedy, the other 6 were unpledged. In the election, the voters were limited to 11 selections altogether, but they didn't have to vote for 11 max, they could omit a line, but could not vote for more than 11. The result was that all 11 of the Democratic electors won, but Kennedy only carried the five pledged, the six unpledged eventually went to some other Democrat. I think the part that was referenced in the paper was that the vote totals from Alabama gave Kennedy credit for X votes (probably his highest ranking elector, or perhaps the highest vote of the unpledged), but in truth all the 11 Democratic electors had roughly the same vote totals, so the fairest method would have taken X and given Kennedy credit for 5/11ths of that vote total.
At least, that was my interpretation based on what I remember about the election in Alabama that year.
"For some reason I was reading the NYT and the same guys we were opposite of in the Nebraska Dem party were representing Al Gore and were up to the same tricks."
Were their fingerprints on this?
In the most shameful and painful act of the hand counts, the Democrats on the ground, and their operators from the Democratic National Committee and the state organization and the Gore campaign, deliberately and systematically scrutinized for challenge every military absentee ballot, and knocked out as many as they could on whatever technicality they could find or even invent.
Reports begin to filter out. The Democratic army of lawyers and operatives marches into the counting room armed with a five-page memo from a Democratic lawyer, instructing them on how to disfranchise military voters. The lawyers and operatives unspool reams of computer printouts bearing the names and party affiliation of military voters. Those who are Republicans are subject to particular and seemingly relentless scrutiny. Right down to signatures on ballots being compared with signatures on registration cards. A ballot bearing a domestic postmark because a soldier had voted, sent his ballot home to his parents and asked them to mail it in on time, is thrown out. A ballot that comes with a note from an officer explaining his ship was not able to postmark his ballot, but that he had voted on time—and indeed it had arrived in time—is thrown out, because it has no postmark.
The Democratic operatives are ruthless, focused. As one witness says, “They had a clear agenda.”
Received late Wednesday, an e-mail forwarded from a Republican who witnessed the counting of the Brevard County overseas absentee ballots.
It is 11:30 PM (Tuesday) and I have just returned from the count of absentee ballots, that started at 4PM. Gore had five attorneys there, the sole objective was to disenfranchise the military absentee voter. . . . They challenged each and every vote. Their sole intent was to disqualify each and every absentee voter. They constantly challenged military votes that were clearly legitimate, but they were able to disqualify them on a technicality. I have never been so frustrated in all my life as I was to see these people fight to prevent our active duty Military from voting. They succeeded in a number of cases denying the vote to these fine Men and Women.
...They denied a number of votes postmarked Queens NY, ballots that were clearly ordered from overseas, clearly returned from overseas, and verified by the Post Office that DOD uses the Queens post office to handle overseas mail, were denied because it didn’t say APO, They denied military votes postmarked out of Jacksonville, Knowing full well it came from ships at sea and was flown into Jacksonville . . . .
The attorneys there treated it all as a joke, and when my wife protested their actions she was told she didn’t understand.
If so, I would appreciate knowing their names. They should not be able to do this and then go back to their private lives as if it was just some game.
Howard: No, evolution is the death of you people #darwinwins
Someone mentioned the dearth of lefty commenters here and was told that even back in the days when Jessica Valenti's breasts were worth taking a closer look at, most of them were just cheap shot artists that had little to offer other than ad hom.
Howard is a good example of that. And I believe he was active back then. Correct me if I'm wrong, Howard?
BTW, I don't understand why you think that is an insult.
1) If you mean that Democracy is progressive, you need to study Athens 6th Century BC. The founding fathers certainly did and passed over it. It's not a new idea, mob rule is not forward thinking.
2) If you mean in general, well... Red State folk don't have declining birthrates, you Blue City State ants do. Aside from killing your babies off. And it's looking like *something* about living in densely populated cities has begun to mutate you guys in the wrong direction - you obviously trend toward communal philosophies from being scrunched together. But I think something worse is evolving there, I think the density is affecting the human psyche and slowly driving you guys mad. People like Inga are not outliers in the Big City, they are legion. It's becoming difficult to even communicate with people like you two, as if we no longer speak the same language. That's going to lead to strife, leading to war, leading to the side with all the guns doing lots of burial detail. You guys are "evolving" into fertilizer for our crops...
I used to think it might be the Radon in the soil in the NorthEast, but that doesn't explain California. Frank Herbert has some interesting Science Fiction on how human physiology changes (sometimes evolving in ways that aren't an improvement) that you might want to consider.
And then there's the Low T "men" your Blue City States are producing. I don't know if it's all the estrogen recycled through your water supply (the filters can't catch it) or a group dynamic resulting from overcrowding, but your men look more and more like Ben Shapiro than John Wayne. Declining birth rates, declining sperm count. I don't think you want to be invoking evolution so arrogantly.
James Michener's 'Presidential Lottery' expands the discussion of alternatives per your footnote 3 in the Law Review article. His experience as an elector led to his writing the book.
Professor Althouse;
I've finished the reading assignment, and concur that you've made a good case for why the 2000 election (and the 1960 election) did not end the electoral college.
However,
The new, improved, 270 law states that (if it is approved), things will never/CAN NEVER reach the House because of a lack of 270 votes. Their law states that the candidate who receives the most popular votes [that's from their website] will receive the votes from each state in the compact. They even Brag about how this is good; "No Runoff"
SO;
If 3 candidates run, and receive 34%, 33.5% 33.5%..... the Candidate with 34% is President
IF 20 candidates run, and 18 receive 5%, one receives 4.999999%, and one receives 5.000001%
Then the new Presdient will be someone that 95% of voters voted against.
IF 100 candidates run, we could literally have a President opposed by 99% of voters
This law has already tied up 172 electoral votes. If/when this law reaches 270, it will be our death
Ann Althouse said...Please read the article before saying things like that.
I printed the article out and will read it, but the conversation will have moved on by then. So I will chime in ignorantly: Unknown is 100% right. The books can explore that angle all they want, but they can't make it less true. Any other justification is pure masturbation.
I've printed the 18 page pdf for reading later. In the meantime I'll offer this. When my children ask me about the electoral college, I say that the United States is like a gigantic cargo ship, a massive oil tanker. Imagine the ship has only one compartment that runs the entire length and breadth of the ship. Imagine it is half full of oil when the ship runs into bad weather. Not good. Now imagine the ship is divided into 50 compartments that prevent the oil from flowing fore or aft, or port and starboard, outside of the confines of each compartment. A much better system for surviving the tempest. I think I made this up, but I'm sure someone else has too.
David: Excellent analogy. I will borrow it.
Our states are like baffles.
Well this last Israeli election, that the polls missed again is an example, much like the race with Kerry thr polls were in favor of gantz the latest cigar store Indian but what happened.
Mankind and the rest who ID as something hasn’t changed. The EC was a brilliant idea.
U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 10:
"No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, ... enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State ... "
Regardless of whether or not California can assign their electors to the popular vote winner, they can't enter into an agreement with other states to do it together.
"Yes, it is a kick-ass article..."
Very Trumpian.
that's why we call them libtards. All emotion, no reason
The best arguments for the EC are a bit abstract, but well known.
1. In choosing a federal government you are designing a decision making system. Those function better when decisions are assessed under multiple criteria. Direct election of all offices vitiates that.
2. Clones are not representative of independent thought. If you cloned the people of Iowa, there is no reason to believe you would get twice the wisdom. People reacting to different conditions in different places are more representative of independent thought. The EC makes some allowance for this.
Mike Sylwester said...
A Constitutional amendment to set the US Supreme Court to nine justices should also limit the length of each justice's term.
That sounds awesome!
So we can replace Ginsbug and Breyer with ABC and Willets. Re-appoint Thomas. Get Roberts to resign, and appoint Thomas as the Chief Justice.
Then get Alito to resign and be re-appointed, and then we have a Supreme Court with 7 Trump appointed conservatives, and two Obama holdovers.
Works for me!
I thought your article was fairly good. I was amused at the "don't worry, we're not going to get someone who wins a majority of the popular vote, but loses the EC!"
I do find it funny to watch the same Dems who rejoiced in the "Blue Wall", now screaming about how horrible the EC is
Oso Negro said...
So. If Trump wins the popular vote in 2020, as I believe he will if he is still alive, will California give him all their electoral votes? Or will they find a way to weasel out of it?
No, the "Compact" doesn't even pretend to kick in until States with 270 EC votes have "joined" it
Blogger John Lynch said...
Splitting electoral votes within a state is a dumb, stupid, ridiculous move by liberal legislators.
It makes it much more likely an election will be thrown to the House of Representatives.
And since the majority of States have a GOP majority in Congress, that pretty much guarantees a GOP win.
Works for me
I do find it amusing that "National Popular Vote" supporters, like leftists everywhere, simply can't see the consequences of their actions.
For example: CA gets to set the rules for how you register and vote in CA, because the results only affect CA.
But if we have a national vote, then every State is going to have to have the same registration and voting rules.
So, CA, kiss goodbye letting people register to vote without showing proof of US Citizenship.
CO, you kiss goodbye your "mail in voting".
NV, you kiss goodbye your extensive voting pre election day.
One vote, one set of rules for everyone.
This is WHY we have Federalism, children
The electoral college has been characterized as a firewall
The Left hates walls.
In history class we were taught that the Electoral College was a compromise that was made in order to appease the concerns of smaller states being overwhelmed by larger states and that the states would not have been "united" as a country if it wasn't in place.
If such a radical change actually does occur, shouldn't the smaller states be allowed to peacefully opt out of the United States?
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